Alan Ayckbourn: Actor

The Rehearsal (1963)

Production Details

Play:
Author:

First performance:
Final performance:
Venue:
Staging:

Director:
The Rehearsal
Anonymous

11 February 1963
17 June 1963
Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent
Round

Peter Cheeseman
Character
The Count
The Countess
Hortensia
Hero
Villebosse
Monsieur Damiens
Lucile
Actor
Alan Ayckbourn
Heather Stoney
Elizabeth Bell
David Halliwell
Peter King
Stanley Page
Caroline Smith

Quotes & Notes

During 1962, the Studio Theatre Ltd company moved from its home at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, to a new permanent venue at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent. Alan Ayckbourn joined the move to the new venue, responsible for writing, directing and acting. Very little is held in Alan Ayckbourn's personal archive about the plays he was involved in during 1963 and there are no programmes, press cuttings or reviews of the shows held in archive.

1963 marked the last year Alan did any substantial amount of acting prior to his retiring from acting to concentrate on writing and directing from 1964 onwards.

Following accolades from The Guardian and the local newspaper, The Evening Sentinel, The Rehearsal was brought back for an extra week of performance from 17 - 22 June replacing the previously advertised An Awkward Number. It was advertised as 'special revival for a week of The Rehearsal.'

Review extract from The Guardian (12 February 1963)
"Alan Ayckbourn's Count has an intensity, when he stands still, that is gripping. In his interviews with the Countess - regally played by Heather Stoney - a real dramatic tension develops; similarly when he is with Lucille, who Caroline Smith portrays with a proper degree of clumsy simplicity.

Review extract from the Evening Sentinel (12 February 1963)
"Alan Ayckbourn and David Halliwell play the duo [The Count and Hero] almost faultlessly."
All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd.