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400 Years of Drama at Dulwich by Peter Jolly (72-80), Director of Drama
2019
Opposite page: Make-up time for the 1965 production of Henry IV, Part 1. Programmes for Julius Caesar , 1957. Twelfth Night ,1958 This page, first row L-R: The cast of Coriolanus on the move, 1961 The technical gallery for the 1961 Baths Hall production of Coriolanus
400 YEARS OF DRAMA at Dulwich by Peter Jolly, Director of Drama
Melpomene, the muse of tragedy
mother show his enthusiasm as well as her worry that he was spending too much time on school drama. The highlight of the Baths Hall was the 1979 Guys and Dolls produced by Alan Cowling, with musical direction by Peter Buckroyd. The production was thrilling, as was Barry Viney’s astonishingly professional elaborate set. The scale, ambition and vitality of the show helped pave the way for drama to be at the centre of College life: a point that was emphasised when the 1979 cast were invited back to meet the cast of the 2011 production. As the Baths Hall’s name suggests, however, the location was at best a temporary one, and Drama was to have no permanent home until the opening of the Edward Alleyn Hall (Theatre) in 1981. This was a watershed for drama at the College. On its opening, the Edward Alleyn Hall was emphatically not to be called a theatre, suggesting that drama was peripheral to the life of boys and the College, and led to erroneous packages being delivered to the College for a Mr EA Hall. A major production was Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in 1989, directed by Kim Eyre and Jonathan Ward, with Rupert Penry-Jones (82-89) in the title role. The new Hall was always cramped and it took sixteen years for the dressing rooms, foyer and rehearsal rooms to be added, reversing cuts made at the time of building. At that point there was no doubt that the change of name to the Edward Alleyn Theatre was long overdue. The refurbished building was opened by Jane Asher in 1997, following a performance of Toad of Toad Hall involving students of all ages. Scholarly, witty exhibitions at both the College Archives and Shakespeare’s Globe explored links between Alleyn and Bankside, the initiative of Nick de Somogyi (75-81), the editor of The Shakespeare Folios series; in conjunction, Alleyn’s The Magnificent Entertainment to welcome King James I was recreated in 2003 by boys at school and at the Globe Theatre. 2016 saw further
Dulwich has maintained a rich tradition of theatrical productions. This was given much support by Christopher Gilkes (Master 41-53) who created House Drama in 1948 and appointed Philip Vellacott to the Classics Department. Vellacott, a renowned translator of Greek drama for the Penguin Classics, directed the annual School Play until his retirement in 1967. Twenty- four productions of Shakespeare plays followed, beginning in 1945 with Henry IV, Part One many celebrated OAs were in Tony Palmer’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1960. Chris Field starred as the Dutchess of Malfi in 1951. As there were no teachers specifically employed to teach drama, all these productions were created by a collaboration of teachers from many departments. Some wrote music, while others designed the sets or directed the plays. Staff and boys were sometimes fellow performers, such as in the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld (1971). The different pattern to the school year also gave the opportunity for boys to put on their own productions: a tradition grew up of performances of highbrow plays by Sixth-Formers in their ‘seventh term’ after the Oxford and Cambridge entrance examinations – such as Yeats’s At The Hawk’s Well and pieces by Samuel Beckett, in the Old Library, or O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (1978) in the The Terry Walsh Pavilion. Of all the locations for plays, the largest stage was in the Baths Hall. Many striking winter productions were produced on the boards over the empty pool, including Robert MacDowell’s production of Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On , Alan Cowling’s 1977 Macbeth and Barry Adalian’s adaptation of Tarzan . A few photographs of extraordinary sets for Great Hall plays are in the Archives, including an interior of a submarine for a now long-lost play. With the help of committed teachers, putting on plays for excited boys of all generations and set them on a path to success. Letters written in the early 1920s between the great film director Michael Powell (20-22) and his
Second row L-R: Forty Years On, 1975
Guys and Dolls, 1979
The programme for Guys and Dolls , 1979
Third row L-R: The set from the 1979 production of Guys and Dolls in the Baths Halls. The stage was of a significant size
Curtain-call for Cabaret , 1983
Forth row L-R: Cabaret 1983
The sound and light crew in the Edward Alleyn Hall in 1989.
Fifth row L-R: The 1989 production of
Doctor Faustus . The eponymous role was first performed by Edward Alleyn Rupert Penry- Jones (82-89), in the 1989 production of Dr Faustus
Jeeves, 1981
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