27Jan 20
Record success at NODA Awards
Kingsley Players has enjoyed record success at the 2020 North West awards from NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association).
At a glittering awards dinner and ceremony at Knutsford’s Mere Golf and Country Club, the group beat off stiff competition from other theatre groups to win four awards from an outstanding total of 14 nominations.
Lynn Pegler scooped Best Director of a Drama for the production of ‘Peterloo’, which she wrote and directed last April. The premiere of her play about the Peterloo Massacre, which featured a talented cast of 16 actors, was also nominated for Best Drama and Best Staging.
Kingsley Youth Theatre, led by Jake Powell, notched up an incredible 11 nominations for two productions, ‘Chatroom’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach’.
Jake won the award for Best Direction of a Youth Theatre Production and acting awards were won by Kate Burge and Ben Mather-Dodd, who received two nominations for leading male actor in both of the Youth Theatre’s plays.
The hard-hitting social media play ‘Chatroom’ was in the running for Best Youth Production and Teigan Withey, Matthew Betteridge, Eva Lemmy and Gemma Smith were nominated in various young actor categories.
Colin Smith, Kingsley Players chairman, said: “The NODA awards are a phenomenal achievement and a fantastic tribute to the whole team, both on stage and behind the scenes, who work so hard to bring our theatrical productions to life.
“For each show we transform Kingsley Community Centre into a theatre and although we may only perform in a village hall, audiences can have
the assurance that we always strive to deliver productions of the highest quality.”
You can catch Kingsley Players back on stage again this week in panto with Jack and his Incredible Beanstalk by multi-talented musical director Arnold Ashbrook. A few tickets are still available for all performances.
Future productions include Alan Ayckbourn’s popular bitter sweet comedy ‘How the Other Half Loves’, directed by Malcolm Barker, on stage for four nights Wednesday 28 April – Saturday 2 May.
And later in May, the group celebrates Cheshire’s most celebrated children’s writer Lewis Carroll with a festival of two plays.
Thursday 21 – Saturday 23 May, Kingsley Players Youth Theatre will perform a stage adaptation of the traditional classic Alice in Wonderland, directed by Jake Powell.
This will be preceded for one night only on Saturday 16 May, with the performance of a new play by Lynn Pegler ‘Alice’s Quest for Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole with Lewis Carroll’ which explores the fact behind the fiction of the relationship between the enigmatic author and the real Alice.