During the autumn of 1922, when people were licking their wounds after the First World War and there was green belt between the town – a pleasant market town – and Kippington and Seal; when Wildernesse and Montreal Houses were occupied by their owners and people went out to dinner taking their music with them  (wirelesses being rare and listened to via headphones), it occurred to Mr Norman Warwick, Mr Wilfred Taylor and Capt Michael Michelli to found a Sevenoaks Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society. Others were enlisted - about forty initially – and so the Sevenoaks Players came into being. 

 

The first show was HMS Pinafore, performed in February 1923 in the Club Hall (later bombed during the Second World War). Since that production, with the exception of the WWII years, we have performed light opera, musicals and drama in the town for ninety years.

 

The venue for our musicals, from the 1950s until 1980 was the Drill Hall in Argyle Road; for plays we used school halls including Wildernesse and Sevenoaks Schools. One year the chorus remember changing and being made up in Miss Sutton's dance studio across the road then dashing through the snow to perform. A stalwart backstage crew, including our local councillor Dorothy (Dot) Parrot, worked hard to erect a stage, based on a boxing ring, a proscenium arch and curtains to create a theatre. Dot, in her dungarees, wielded a hammer and screw-driver, swept the floor, and made endless cups of tea and cake for the set-builders. Chairs were transported from Sevenoaks School by trailer!

Sadly, the Drill Hall became unavailable and in 1981 the Sevenoaks Players, under its then chairman Jim Cheeseman, pioneered the use of the Focus Cinema, formerly the Odeon, building yet another stage with scaffolding, again known as the ' boxing-ring' in front of the main screen and using the two small cinemas as dressing rooms. Eventually through the commitment of Maggie Durdant-Hollamby (a former Chairman of the Players) and the Sevenoaks Theatre Action Group ( STAG ), the Focus Cinema building became the Stag Theatre, much to the delight of the Players.

Great fun is to be had when researching a production. One year twenty of us went to Sark prior to our production of The Dame of Sark - a good excuse for a long week-end away. During the photocall anyone in Nazi uniform had to stay away from the windows!

Panic stations ensue when the set is not quite finished, for example the paint on the cow-shed was still wet as the chorus entered in White Horse Inn, We all have great stories to tell; one of the funniest being a publicity photo-shoot at Knole House for Katherine Howard  with Henry Vlll, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and the rest of the cast in full costume, and a group of Japanese tourists looking on in utter bewilderment .

Until the early eighties we were the only operatic and dramatic society performing in Sevenoaks. We have always been self-financing although the rising costs of mounting a musical production makes this increasingly a challenge.

Joining the world of theatre is a wonderful experience for the younger generation; with many new members joining the  Players, and together with our older members we look towards our centenary with confidence and enthusiasm. 

 

          President: Peter Smith                                                                  Chairman: Sandra  Barfield  
 
Diane Richardson