Opening Event -
Edwin by John Mortimer
To be performed by the GEDS committee. Food and drink as from 19:30.
Synopsis: A retired judge is obsessed by the notion that his friend and neighbour once had an affair with his wife and may indeed be the father of his supposed son.

Hay Fever by Noël Coward
Synopsis: Noël Coward's classic comedy is set in the country home of the eccentric Bliss family - Judith, a recently retired stage actress, David, a self-absorbed novelist and their two equally bohemian children who all live in their own world where the boundaries between reality and fiction are extremely blurred. Upon entering this domain, their unsuspecting weekend guests, an upright diplomat, a shy flapper, an athletic boxer, and a fashionable sophisticate are repeatedly thrown into wildly melodramatic situations by their hosts. The resulting pandemonium is a joy to witness.
Arranged by: David Wark, cast: 4M 5F

Epitaph for George Dillon by John Osborne
Synopsis: George Dillon has inserted himself into a middle class family, living off them and, at the same time, despising them. When he sells out, he finds himself trapped in the same dull family domesticity he has so bitterly condemned. Yet, perhaps, this is just a punishment for the selfish way in which he has preyed on this household. It's at this point that he recites his own epitaph filled with contempt now for himself?
Arranged by: David Farrar, cast: 5M 5F

Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby
Synopsis: Rutherford owns a glassmaking factory that he inherited from his father. He has put his whole life into running the business, which he intends to pass down to his sons to run after him, but his children see both him and the business as dark, repressive shadows that they want to break free of to make their own lives. By the end of the play, Rutherford has driven away his two sons and his daughter, but he gains something unexpected to take their place at the very end. Sowerby cleverly presents a society filled with conflict - between generations, between genders and between classes - without really commenting on it or drifting into too much controversy, unlike Ibsen who had only died six years earlier and whose plays were still considered offensive by many people.
Arranged by: Alan Leather, cast: 4M 4F

After the Fall by Arthur Miller
Synopsis: At the outset Quentin emerges, moves forward and seats himself on the edge of the stage and begins to talk, like a man confiding in a friend. In the background are key figures in his life, and they move in and out of his narrative. The narration shades into scenes, little and big. They are revelations and illuminations. They remind Quentin of an awkward young girl whom he made proud of herself. They bring the tortured image of his mother's death and another of his mother's fury with his father, who lost all in trying to save a floundering business. They crisscross through his relations with a number of women - the first wife who wanted to be a separate person, the second who drove him into a separateness and a possible third who knew, as a German raised in a furnace of concentration camps, that 'survival can be hard to bear.' These intertwining images bring back the memories of inquisition when men were asked to name names of those who had joined with them in a communism party.
Arranged by: Neil-Jon Morphy, cast: 12M 11F

In A Forest Dark and Deep by Neil LaBute
Synopsis: The play starts, intriguingly enough, with a sibling encounter in a midwestern cabin during a violent storm. Betty, dean of a liberal arts college, has asked brother Bobby, a jobbing carpenter, to help her shift piles of books left behind by a student tenant. And, as Betty and Bobby bicker and quarrel, one is struck by the difference between them. Betty, married with two kids, is a self-conscious intellectual while Bobby appears to be a crude philistine who at one point asks if the tenant was gay because he read the New Yorker. But, when Bobby accidentally discovers an incriminating picture of Betty with a student, all our assumptions are thrown into reverse.
Arranged by: Jack Martin, cast: 1M 1F

Wit by Margaret Edson
Synopsis: Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Edson's extraordinary play tells the story of Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Vivian has spent years studying and teaching the brilliant and difficult metaphysical sonnets of John Donne through aggressively probing and rationalising his works. But during the course of her illness - and her stint as a prize patient in an experimental chemotherapy programme at a major teaching hospital, Vivian comes to reassess her life and her work with a profundity and humour that are transformative both for her and the audience.
Arranged by: Charles Slovenski, cast: 3M 3F

Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn
Synopsis: Diana organizes a get-together for Colin - an old friend of her husband who they haven't seen for years -  with the aim of cheering him up after hearing his fiancée died.  Husband Paul is unenthusiastic, and friends John & Evelyn and Marge & Gordon are not thrilled about being invited.   They all have their own problems, but when Colin arrives they try to be nice and express their sympathy for him.  Colin turns out to be an annoyingly happy man, with a message of love, who reminiscences about their mutual youth.  He wants to sort his friends out, but the fact is they don't want to be sorted out.  His motives come from a genuine affection , but what he's saying they know and would rather not have repeated .....
Arranged by: Beverley Rousset, cast: 3M 3F

Engaged by W.S. Gilbert
Synopsis: The hero, described as a man of property, has an unfortunate habit of engaging himself in marriage to every pretty girl he meets. A series of complications naturally arises out of this propensity, much enhanced by the fact that in one of these moments of weakness he has gone a step farther, and declared one of three heroines of the piece to be his very wife. This announcement is made in the garden of a small cottage on the Scottish border, and having been made in the presence of more than one witness is, according to the law of the land, tantamount to the actual performance of the marriage ceremony.
Arranged by: David Stieber, cast: 5M 5F

Alison’s House by Susan Glaspell
Synopsis: Winner of the Pullitzer Prize in 1931. Inspired by the life and work of the American poet Emily Dickinson, the play is set by Glaspell in her native Iowa. It is 18 years since Alison Stanhope, the country's foremost poet, died. Now the house she lived in must be sold, but it holds secrets. Did Alison sacrifice the man she loved for the sake of her family's reputation? And who do such sacrifices benefit? The play's struggles are set in 1899, on the cusp of the 20th Century in which very different values will come to prevail.
Arranged by: Sue Leather, cast: 4M 5F

Dear Mr Rogge by Dinah Lee Küng
Synopsis: Dear Mr. Rogge concerns the Chinese writer in detention, He Depu, sentenced for eight years for “state subversion” triggered by running for elective office on the Chinese Democracy Party slate.  In 2008 He Depu fought off torture, depression, and illness to smuggle out a letter challenging IOC President Jacques Rogge to walk from the Birds Nest Arena to Beijing Prison No. 2 to check the truth of his claim that the 2008 Olympics would be a catalyst for only good.  In fact, the Olympics caused He Depu and fellow inmates increased physical and mental suffering. Mr. He had already survived beatings and deprivation in jail. He risked further retaliation with his daring appeal. Even Chinese diplomats in Geneva warned his advocates that the prisoner would pay a price for continued resistance. He Depu seemed defeated and then—his defiant and eloquent rebuke was broadcast and published by more than 200 news outlets worldwide concurrently with the Beijing Olympics’ Opening Ceremony and Parade of Nations.
Arranged by: Neil-Jon Morphy, cast: 10M 4F

Ruby of Elsinore by Bruce Kane
Synopsis: A slovenly and indecisive Hamlet, a marriage bent Ophelia, a horny Gertrude, a power hungry Claudius and a ticked off Ghost let their hair down to Elsinore's hippest hair dresser.
The Real Problem by Bruce Kane
Synopsis: In a comedy about love and men, Juliet gets conflicting advice from the ever loyal and romantic Desdemona, whose husband Othello still suspects her of having an affair; “Taming of the Shrew’s” Katherine, who claims that “all men are pigs”; and, finally, the head of Henry VIII’s late wife Anne Boleyn, who believes women should be free to pursue their appetites… in spite of her present condition
Arranged by: Mary Stuttard
Ruby of Elsinore Cast: 3M 3F, The Real Problem Cast: 5F

STAGE PRODUCTION: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Deckchairs by Jean McConnell
Synopsis:
Early Blight - The mundane existence of a mother and daughter living by the sea is disrupted by an unexpected event.
Dancers - A witty look at the tea-dancing world of two skittish women.

Seascape by Tony Rushforth
Synopsis: This moving and lyrical play takes place during the summer of 1940 and is set against the dramatic wartime backdrop of the internment camp at Port Erin on the Isle of Man. Two romances develop: one between a German internee of 17 and an English girl of the same age, prevented by circumstances from leaving the Isle; the other between a woman of Italian descent and a German Jew. The play raises issues about a little-recorded part of British domestic history in which the characters are sustained by their hopes and dreams which we, the audience, finally realize will not be fulfilled
Arranged by: Valerie Antonietti
Deck Chairs Cast: 2F, Seascape Cast: 2M 2F

Playreading: Title to be announced in Spotlight Newsletter.
Arranged by: Christa Baan, in conjunction with the Village Players, Lausanne

The Private Eye by Peter Shaffer
Synopsis: Private Eye - Tchaik (for Tchaikovsky), a classical music enthusiast, invitee Doreen, who he fancies, and Ted, a less musical sophisticate, to listen to his new stereo. Despite all his endeavours Doreen prefers Ted.
The Public Ear by Peter Shaffer
Synopsis: Charles, an accountant, has married Belinda, hoping to mould her into the ideal wife. When she doesn't conform he believes she's having an affair and hires a detective, Cristoforou, with unexpected results.
Arranged by: Frances Favre, cast: 2M 1F or 4M, 2F

The Vortex by Noël Coward
Synopsis: The story follows a talented young composer, Nicky Lancaster. Nicky proposes to his lover Bunty, a journalist, while his mother Florence, an ageing socialite, has extramarital affairs with younger men, including Tom, who is also Bunty's ex-fiancé. Tensions come to a boil as Nicky struggles with his severe cocaine addiction and repressed homosexuality (a theme that was necessarily subtly conveyed, considering contemporary attitudes), as well as the simmering resentment he feels for his vainglorious mother.
Arranged by: Charles Slovenski, cast: 5M 4F

Closing Event - in a garden venue on a lovely summer evening!
As You Like it by William Shakespeare
Synopsis: Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. The Duke's daughter Rosalind has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin of Frederick's only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who has fallen in love at first sight of Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the jester Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor lady.
Arranged by: Sue & Alan Leather, cast: Large