Pembroke Players
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¤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 international tours. The Society celebrated its 50th birthday in 2005.
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[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 the Pembroke Players Japan 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. In recent years, the German Tour has been superseded by the Pembroke Players Japan Tour.
[edit] Pembroke Players Japan Tour (PPJT)
The Pembroke Players Japan Tour is the UK's only student-run theatrical tour to Japan, founded in 2007. It exists to promote cultural and theatrical dialogue, and to bring Shakespeare to students studying at Japanese institutions.
Pembroke Players have a long history of touring theatre, having run a series of German Tours in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea of a Japan Tour was conceived by a group of Pembroke students in 2006, in large part because of Pembroke College's preexisting links, in terms of academic exchanges, with a number of Japanese universities.
The tour has a significant educational component, embodied in an 'education pack' sent out to participating institutions before the touring group arrives, and then in workshops with students.
[edit] PPJT 2007
The 2007 tour, of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, held performances at the Embassy of Japan, London; the Barrandov Opera, Needham Market; Seikei University, Tokyo; Meiji University, Tokyo; National Olympic Youth Memorial Centre, Tokyo; at high schools in Kochi and Wakayama; and then back in Pembroke College's own theatre. The 2007 tour also gained financial support from Pembroke College, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Daiwa Foundation. Press and public reaction was highly favourable.[1] An edited record of the performance is on You Tube: Romeo & Juliet
[edit] PPJT 2008
The tour intends to expand its geographical scope in 2008, with a vibrant production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
