Pembroke Players
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pembroke Players (formerly Pembroke College Players) is an amateur theatrical society in Cambridge, England, founded in 1955 and run by the students of Pembroke College, Cambridge. It is the most active College drama society in the University, staging 10-15 drama productions and comedy smokers every year. It is also the only College drama society to run its own European tour. The Society celebrated its 50th birthday in 2005.
[edit] History
Pembroke Players was founded in the Autumn of 1955 in Room F3, next to the chapel bike racks. In addition to theatre, the underlying purpose of the society was to enable students at the then all-male college to meet ladies from across the University, and accordingly the first meeting was attended by 5 Pembroke men and 48 assorted New Hallers, Girtonians and Newnhamites. (It should be noted that this first meeting subsequently culminated in several marriages.) The first theatre production, 'Ring Around the Moon' (Anouilh), took place in snow-struck Blinco Grove in February 1956. (College guarantee £50, bill for damage to hall £18.)
Whilst a term's worth of shows constituted one or two productions and involved a dozen or so people back in 1955, 50 years later the story is much different. The society now holds up to 8 theatre productions or comedy events per term, along with a German tour, an annual pantomime and numerous student poetry evenings which are currently organised by two Young Poets of the Year.
Pembroke Players also has many famous and distinguished alumni. Recordings survive from early productions and Smokers in the 1950s and 1960s featuring original material written and performed by, inter alia, Peter Cook, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Eric Idle, Germaine Greer and Clive James. Pembroke Smokers were also the first meeting place for the Monty Python group. Innovation was not limited to the performances either; a poster from a 1970 production features one of the earliest examples of computer generated ascii art in advertising.
[edit] Pembroke Players German Tour
The first Tour of West Germany took place in the summer of 1957, after one of the founders of the Society became the unintended recipient of a letter addressed to the Cambridge Mummers, inviting them to record Hamlet for German radio. Following a little moonlighting the Pembroke Players secured the tour for themselves instead, playing at venues in Bielefeld, Essen, Düsseldorf and Cologne. The tour was recorded in its entirety for Nord West Deustche Rundfunk and was conducted under the auspices of 'Die Bruecke', a spin off of the British Council. Many other tours have been run since; the most recent being "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde in 2005.
