30 years of FCT

ENDA Time!

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In the 30+ years of FCT’s existence only one actor in Hollywood achieved back-to-back Oscar success. Well, FCT have done the equivalent in their field with consecutive Best Musical ENDAs in 2008 and 2009. An incredible feat given the competition.

Read on….

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Yes, a bit difficult to read – here is the full article…

Theatre groups full of cheer after second award in a row

LIAM RUDDEN and LAURA CUMMINGS

Evening News  29 Aug 2009

TWO amateur theatre companies are celebrating after winning Evening News Drama Awards for the second consecutive year. Edinburgh Theatre Arts received the award for Best Play on this year’s Fringe at a glittering awards ceremony on the roof of The Gilded Balloon, in the Loft VIP Bar last night. The biggest cheer of the night came when Forth Children’s Theatre was named the winner of the Best Musical award for its production of Ragtime. It follows the youth theatre company’s success at the 2008 awards when it won the same accolade for its production of Jekyll and Hyde. Cabaret star Camille O’Sullivan presented Edinburgh Theatre Arts with the Best Play award for A Tale Of Two Cities, which centred on the French Revolution. Cabaret act Frisky and Mannish – also known as Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones – presented Forth Children’s Theatre with its award. Frisky had the audience in fits of laughter when she said that both her and Matthew started off in the amateur world, which is “a great place to learn a sense of irony”. Chairman of Edinburgh Theatre Arts and director of A Tale Of Two Cities, John McLinden, 62, said: “It is fantastic to win the award because it is great recognition for six months of really hard work putting the show together. “It was quite a complicated show with 34 scenes, which we had to cram into St Ninian’s Church hall.” He laughed: “We also had to build a working guillotine for people to have their heads chopped off!” Director of Ragtime, Andrew Dyer, 23, added: “It is the second year in a row that we have won the award and we are very grateful. It was a very proud moment for everyone and the children are all fair away with themselves!” Around 100 actors, directors and producers from all 12 nominated amateur companies witnessed the presentation of this year’s awards. The awards were introduced by the Evening News two years ago to recognise the work of local companies during the Fringe. Edinburgh Theatre Arts, whose Fringe history dates back to the early seventies, won the Best Play for its production of Dennis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills at last year’s awards. The drama awards were judged for the second year running by Scottish Community Drama Association adjudicator Ron Cattell, Evening News theatre critic Thom Dibdin, and Fiona Rogan – an arts professional with more than 30 years’ experience working with amateur groups across Scotland. The award for Best Musical was judged by Edinburgh actor Arron Usher, musicals producer Eleanor Brown, and James Haworth, general manager of the Edinburgh Playhouse. Mr Haworth, 39, said: “Many of the shows that the Edinburgh amateur companies have put on have actually been better than the professional productions I have seen this year. “The thing that you get from amateurs is an incredible enthusiasm.” “For amateurs to be able to perform in front of worldwide audiences is just an incredible treat for them.”

High Praise Indeed!

/ Forth Childrens Theatre / 1 Comment
 
  
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Received today at FCT HQ…..
 
Dear FCT,
 
My sister and I are musical theatre scholars and have worked professionally in the Biz and we agreed that your production was finer in many respects than many professional productions we’ve seen.  After seeing your production of Ragtime last night I felt compelled to write to you to say how utterly impressed my sister and I were and how much we thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
We know Ragime inside out, having closely followed its progress since it lost the Tony to The Lion King in 1998 and all else since. I made it down to London for the premiere production there, and we also saw it at the Fringe a few years ago when the American High School Theatre performed it. We agreed that yours was as good if not better than all of these. We were particularly impressed  by the first-class direction and staging. It displayed a sensitive understanding of the vision of E L Doctorow, Ahrens & Flaherty, McNally et al. I also loved the allusions to the original Broadway production lighting. You moved us and touched us very deeply and we wanted to thank you for giving us this great joy of seeing one of our absolutely favourite musicals live. Sensational! We look forward to seeing many more of your outstanding productions in the future.
 
Very best wishes,
 
Eva and Barbara Spevack

Ragtime and the Inglourious Basterds

/ Forth Childrens Theatre / 3 Comments

The following quote is very topical in the world of showbiz… (Somehow though we think it should be taken with a Tarantino-sized pinch of salt – most of the kids in the show won’t be able to watch this movie for a good few years!)

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Article/interview from Observer Magazine (Sunday 9th August) about Tarantino’s new movie, Inglourious Basterds….

This plotline is the Dirty Dozen remade as torture flick with a nod, I kid you not, to those old-fashioned, stiff upper-lip British war films of the 60s. “I sat down to write a bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission movie,” says Tarantino, “and that happens, but it’s closer to, say, the film of EL Doctorow’s Ragtime than it is to The Devil’s Brigade.”

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Well – we’ll have to see about that…..someday.