The Coliseum is holding the annual open auditions for the pantomime chorus again this month. We are looking for females aged between eight and fifteen years old that have an interest in performance and dancing.

We need to recruit two teams of eight who will perform in Sleeping Beauty which opens on Saturday 20 November. These teams will work with the company right from the beginning of the rehearsal period which starts on 25 October.

The auditions are very relaxed and lots of fun. If you come along you will be working with me and Choreographer Beverly Edmonds. You will perform a dance combination involving lots of different styles like jazz, ballet and tap, then you will sing us a song so that we get an idea of strength and quality of your voice. Finally we ask you to tell us a joke – a simple and effective way for us to judge your acting skills and, of course, make us laugh.

If you are successful you will work with the backstage crew, actors, designer, Beverly and myself to help put together another successful pantomime. Anyone who has seen a pantomime at the Coliseum before will be aware of just how high the standards are for this large scale production – full of intricate costumes, stunning sets and excellent performances from the cast.

Auditions take place on Sunday 19 September at the Coliseum. If you are interested (or know someone who is) then contact Anne Louise on 0161 624 1731 to reserve a place. The auditions are held in height order so please have your details ready with you call.

Another great opportunity for young people aged 15 – 18 years (including males) is to become a Young Reporter. People interested can volunteer to provide dynamic reviews on events across Oldham. No experience necessary, all you need is enthusiasm to create unique, engaging and thought-provoking questions. It will give you the chance to attend some exciting events across the borough and find out what people really think – reporting back on everything that you discover.

The Young Reporters project is working in association with The Festival which is based at the theatre. If you are interested in getting involved the Coliseum are holding a taster session on Wednesday 15 September, 5:00pm – 7:00pm. Please contact Carly on 0161 785 7008 or email at carlyhenderson@coliseum.org.uk to find out more.

Alternatively, if you are an organisation hosting an event and would like it covered by a Young Reporter then get in touch to book. It’s an interesting and innovative way of gathering feedback from participants and audience members.

We require a Wardrobe Maintenance Assistant to work on our production of Kes until Saturday 25 September 2010.

You will be responsible for all laundry and maintenance of costumes and also costume setting before each performance.

This post is 24 hours a week, Tuesday to Saturday. Experience preferred.

Send contact details and CV to bridgetbartley@coliseum.org.uk with WARDROBE MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT in the subject line.

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WARDROBE ASSISTANT

We require an experienced Wardrobe Assistant to work in our busy wardrobe department constructing costumes for Panto.

This post is 39 hours a week, working Monday to Friday. We are offering an 8 week contract between 27/09/2010 and 19/11/2010 including panto tech week.

Send contact details and CV to bridgetbartley@coliseum.org.uk with WARDROBE ASSISTANT in the subject line.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by phone.

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WARDROBE MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT AND DRESSER

We require a Dresser to work on this year’s pantomime – Sleeping Beauty – on a part time basis between 18/11/2010 and 31/12/2010.

Dressing experience and basic sewing skills would be preferred for this post. You will work alongside another dresser at all times and also be responsible for all show laundry and maintenance.

This post includes Friday evenings, every Saturday, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and the 2 Bank Holidays.

Send contact details and CV to bridgetbartley@coliseum.org.uk with WARDROBE MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT AND DRESSER in the subject line.

Opening night is just around the corner for Kes and I’m really looking forward to getting the Autumn/Winter season started. It will be great to welcome our audience back after the summer break – they are after all why we work so hard on these productions. They are certainly in for a real treat with Kes beginning proceedings.

A little further ahead, LipService’s Desperate to be Doris arrives at the Coliseum on 27 October. The show is a hilarious homage to film and musical icon Doris Day. As part of the performance the production has a community choir on stage singing various Doris Day songs. This choir has been recruited specifically from the Oldham area so contains only local singers. If you were at this season’s Season Launch in May you will know we asked for volunteers after LipService performed a snippet of the show. LipService will be recruiting a different community choir for each town that the show tours to. The Oldham choir will be starting rehearsals on Monday 6 September.

The annual writing festival Wordsmith will also take place in October. This is a week long programme of writing activities for anyone with a flair or interest in writing – whatever ability. Participants get the chance to work alongside professional writers and share their ideas. Rehearsed readings, master classes and script surgeries will take place during the course of the week. Joyce Branagh who is directing The Sunshine Boys as well as directors Chris Wright and Adam Sunderland will be working on pieces and taking part in script reading for the festival. We are currently firming up the actors that are also going to be involved. Updates will appear both on the website and in this column so keep a look out.

The Festival is working hard on their collaboration with Stan’s Cafe and Gallery Oldham to deliver the new All of The People in the World exhibition. The show, which will be installed in both Oldham and Tokyo, uses grains of rice to bring formally abstract statistics to life. Simply put, each grain of rice equals one person and all the figures will be human statistics and relevant to the location of the exhibition. For example, there may be a pile which represents the population of Oldham, another with the population of Greater Manchester and another with the population of the United Kingdom.

The exhibition runs from 7 – 28 September at Gallery Oldham and the Festival is still looking for volunteer performers to support Stan’s Cafe artists throughout the installation. If you are interested then contact the Festival at info@festivalofdiversity.co.uk or call 0161 785 7016.

- Can you create unique, engaging and thought-provoking questions?
- Generate a buzz?
- Instigate interesting discussions?
- Find out what people really think?
- Attend some exciting events?
- Capture the moments the cameras often miss?

The Coliseum is holding a taster session on Wednesday 15 September 5-7pm for all budding reporters.

If you are organising an event and would like it covered by a Young Reporter, for interesting and innovative ways of gathering feedback from participants and audience members, then get in touch to book.

To get involved call Carly on 0161 785 7008 or email carlyhenderson@coliseum.org.uk for more information.

The Coliseum is looking to recruit two teams of eight girls to perform in this year’s pantomime, Sleeping Beauty.

This is a fantastic opportunity to appear in a production at a professional theatre. You will work with the director, choreographer, backstage crew and actors to help put together another great pantomime. Along the way we guarantee you will have lots of fun and make new friends.

Auditions will take place on the Sunday 19 September at the Coliseum. If you are interested please ask your parent or guardian to call 0161 624 1731 and speak to Anne-Louise to reserve your place.

Auditions will be held in height order so please have your details ready when you call.

Here’s what last year’s teams had to say:

“Thank you for letting me be in the chorus and I’ll try again next year”

“I love being on the stage and everyone’s lovely”

“I love seeing how the show comes together”

“Everyone in the audition room was smiley and calm”

“The best bit about panto is meeting friends I love them all, it’s been the highlight of my year”

“It’s the best fun ever! We meet lots of new friends and have fun!!”

It’s that time again, the one week in the year when there is nothing on the stage. The building has been very quiet and lots of staff are off on their annual holiday, making the most of this slightly less busy period.

This time gives us a chance to perform a lot of maintenance around the theatre that can’t be done when the building is full of audience members and participants. The stage lights are stripped, equipment updated, the flying systems are checked and everything gets a thorough service. This way we can ensure that everything is safe and secure for the year ahead.

In the past, the maintenance took place over an eight week break during the summer. That seems like a luxury to us now, but it just goes to show how far the theatre has expanded over the years.

The quiet doesn’t last for long though; the cast of Kes arrive to begin rehearsals on Monday. Kicking off with a large scale production like this is a great way to open the new season, it’s even bigger than The Road to Nab End which closed the Spring/Summer season. Along with the ten strong cast, we also have a total of 48 young people aged between 11 – 16yrs in the production. All 48 got through the open audition we held back in May. There was a great response to the opportunity to work alongside professional actors, over 200 people auditioned so it was very hard to find the final 48.

Working in two teams of 24 the groups will make up school children and crowd scenes throughout the play. As the cast is so big we have had to source an additional rehearsal space at University Campus Oldham for the two teams. They will be rehearsing twice a week at UCO and joining the cast for the first time on Tuesday.

Although we are just about to open a new season I am already thinking about the Spring/Summer season for next year. There are hundreds of plays that could be produced and I’m currently making my way through lots of scripts – filling up my entire summer reading list. I’m currently in discussions with other theatres about future co-productions. With each co-production it is essential that both theatres involved are happy to produce the play. More often than not there are plays that both myself and the artistic director of the other theatre have always wanted to put on so it’s not hard to reach an agreement on which plays to do. However, it is hard to whittle down the final wish list.

But back to the current season, if you haven’t done so already, make sure you get yourself an Oldham Coliseum Season Ticket. Starting at just £45.00, you can see four shows including Kes, The Sunshine Boys, Private Lives and a choice of three tours; The House of Bilquis Bibi, The Caretaker and Dancing at Lughnasa. You also get free evening parking, free ticket transfers and priority booking. Call the box office on 0161 624 2829 to book yours.

See you at the theatre.

Kevin Shaw

Artistic Director

While you wait, have a look at the production photography.

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And so we come to the end of another successful season here at the Coliseum. It has brought a range of talented actors, directors and designers to Oldham to work on an array of productions. These plays all had very different styles and content from an a capella musical to a wartime classic and we also managed to include a world premiere which was received well both critically and by our audience. The Coliseum audience have been just as valuable as all the different people who have helped put the productions together. Without our audience we wouldn’t have the theatre.

The audience has been extremely supportive of the programme and has expressed many positive comments. We always welcome feedback from our audience and if you wish to let us know what you think about the theatre or one of its productions you can leave a comment either at box off or via our Facebook and Twitter pages. I am sure our audience will be looking forward to the new season as much as I am.

Having cast Kes last week, we have now finished casting for Sleeping Beauty. Once again we welcome back a few well known and loved faces here at the Coliseum who all appeared in last year’s Mother Goose; Patrick Bridgman (King Cuthbert), Nicole Evans (Princess Beauty), Richard Fletcher (Cheeky Chester), Linzi Mathews (Queen Hermione), and Amy Rhiannon Worth (Careless Carrie). This year evil Carabosse will be played by Sue Devany who was last at the Coliseum in 2006 appearing in Cinderella. Of course, no pantomime would be complete without the dame and we have Fine Time Fontayne returning to play Nurse Nora.

Now the casting is finalised the wardrobe department can start on fittings for the many intricate costumes. The panto is the busiest production of the year in the building and wardrobe begin working on costumes as early as May. The earlier wardrobe can begin fittings the better as they have to make at least two outfits for each actor and even more for the dame. The script is also ready so the actors can start learning their lines – even though it’s July! A little light bedtime reading for them.

Directing both Sleeping Beauty and Kes does increase my schedule somewhat. Although Sleeping Beauty doesn’t open until November as you can see from above, we start work on it much earlier because it is such a big production. So, I’ve had to cast for both Kes and Sleeping Beauty at the same time. This is quite a complex process as they are two very different productions.

The season may have ended but we will be having a small scale performance tomorrow. The Play in a Week participants will perform their self made mini production for friends and family tomorrow afternoon. I shall certainly be making sure I catch the show.

Outside of the walls of the Coliseum, Crompton House School were visited by the circus last week. 30 pupils from Year 6 and 7 took part in a summer school where they worked with a director, circus tutor and mask maker to create and perform their own circus themed show. All of this was organised by the Coliseum’s Education and Outreach Department who facilitate workshops with dozens of schools across the borough providing continuing opportunities for young people to work on exciting projects such as this circus workshop.

See you at the theatre.

Kevin Shaw

Artistic Director

The council and the theatre will work together to develop and implement a planned schedule of renewal and repairs during the next four years. The main areas of improvement will be the replacement of the Coliseum’s heating and ventilation system and the removal of asbestos from the building.

Although some areas of the building contain the mineral, it is sealed and poses no immediate risk to public or staff. However, it needs to be safely removed to facilitate other renewals and repairs. The investment from Oldham Council will ensure this can go ahead.

David Martin, Executive Director, comments:

“We are absolutely delighted that Oldham Council is working with us to secure the future of the Coliseum. The building has served us very well for many years and is in need of a major overhaul. Although we have undertaken a comprehensive programme of repairs and renewals at the theatre, the major works proposed here have been a very daunting prospect and difficult for us to achieve on our own.

“The fabric of the building is very important to us and these works will enable us to offer a far more comfortable experience to our many customers, volunteers and participants in cultural activities. We will be working closely with the Council to make sure that our theatre programme and schedule of educational work is disrupted as little as possible whilst this much-needed maintenance takes place.

“We look forward to a new lease of life following the completion of these works and the opportunity to continue to deliver a varied high-quality cultural programme to the people of Oldham.”

The £1.45m funding is part of the new £32m capital investment plan between the Oldham Council and the Coliseum which will run until 2014, ensuring the long-term future of our thriving regional theatre.

Although the theatre is getting ready to wind down for the maintenance break during August, there are still lots of activities taking place around the theatre.

Next week one of the very popular education activities, Play in a Week, will be devising, developing and finally performing a brand new piece of theatre that they will create – as the name suggests – during the week. This is always a hit with both the participants and the friends and family who come and watch the performance at the end of the week. This activity gives children the chance to develop various styles of theatre and how to use them in a performance. By the end of the week they will be well equipped with theatrical skills ready to explore drama further.

Another performance involving many participants from a wide range of education activities is Strictly Come Culture which is taking place tomorrow and Saturday at University Campus Oldham. The piece of work has been created with a lot of input from the young people who are heavily involved in the Coliseum with groups such as DigiLAB, TheatreLAB and Theatre Pathways.

More information about these groups can be found in the season brochure or online here. Some of the cast and creative team performed in the successful Heaven Spot which was on the main stage last November and have taken part in several other projects such as street theatre and workshops before starting work on Strictly Come Culture. If you would like to know a bit more about the performance visit the Coliseum website and have a read of an interview with some of the participants and director.

The casting for Kes is nearly complete. I can announce that Adam Barlow is taking a short break from the Coliseum having starred as Billy in The Road to Nab End which closed a couple of weeks ago to return to play – um – Billy (we might just make sure we give Adam a ring whenever we have a Billy in the cast). All joking aside this is an excellent role for any young actor to play and having impressed us all with his portrayal of young Billy in TRTNE I’m looking forward to working with him again.

Paul Barnhill is also returning to Oldham having had a slightly longer break, he played Mike in The Memory of Water in May. Paul will be playing Mr Farthing, Billy’s supportive teacher who is impressed with his imagination and skill. Simeon Truby and Ged McKenna, who both recently appeared in And a Nightingale Sang earlier this year, will be playing PE teacher Mr Sugden and strict head teacher Mr Gryce respectively. Filling the shoes of another teacher Mr Crossley is Antony Bessick who starred in One for the Road in 2005. Meriel Scolfield will be playing Billy’s mother Mrs Casper. Meriel was last here playing Rita in the 2005 production of Brassed Off. And Isobel Ford is playing Mrs McDowell who also played Rita in Brassed Off, but this time in the 2008 production. To take the roles of Billy’s school mates and his abusive brother Jud will be recent drama school graduates who will all be new to the Coliseum stage.

To buy tickets for Kes or any other Coliseum production call the box office on 0161 624 2829 or click here.

See you at the theatre.

Kevin Shaw

Artistic Director