Community Players

History

The players were formed by the Community Centre in 1989 in response to an invitation to enter the “Cornwall Village Pantomime Competition” sponsored by Calor Gas – a total of 31 villages entered the competition that year. They presented their first show “Old Mother Red Riding Boots & the 3 Little Pigs” in March 1990. The show was written and directed by Ivor Potter, and at the Pantomime “Oscars” awards ceremony received a Highly Commended award plus a “Special Achievement” award as they had started from scratch, without even a stage.

The Village Pantomime Competition continued until 1999 by which time 86 village pantomimes were entered. The ‘Oscars’ award nights, held at the Cornwall Coliseum were always entertaining fun-filled events and Morwenstow Players were very successful every year of the competition with the pinnacle coming in 1992 when their production of “A Lad In China” received 2nd prize for the best production.
They went from strength to strength and over the years presented 27 pantomimes or musical shows to very appreciative audiences. Their 2018 show was a musical comedy “Keep Calm & Carry On” which was a very funny but poignant show about Morwenstow in World War II. In 2019 their last show was Pasties Galore a rip roaring tale of pasties, ships and mermaids and so much more!

Currently ‘The Morwenstow Community Players are on hold as they are sorely in need of a Producer and Director to continue their excellent reputation in producing pantomimes. Hopefully the group will start again and many volunteers will be required to be on-stage, backstage, lighting & sound, scenery painters, costumes and props box office, makeup etc.

The Morwenstow Community Players group were linked to the Community Centre to produce a show each year at the Community Centre and a large proportion of their operating proceeds went directly to them with the remainder being donated to local charities.

The Players used to start rehearsing in September and the performances took place during the February half term. If you are interested in becoming the Director or Producer you would be very welcome as it would be great to have some more theatrical productions for the local community to enjoy and join in with.

Please contact the Morwenstow Community Centre Committee Secretary secretary@morwenstowcommunitycentre.co.uk if you are interested.