the season’s P&J performances will take place on three consecutive Wednesday evenings on:

March 14, 21 and 28 at 8PM
Café Engel, Aleksanterinkatu 26.
Music will be provided by John Millar on the clarinet, as a bunch of Players recite under Joel Holmberg’s direction. As always, free entrance. Welcome!

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Take a little trip down Players memory lane: The Gallery of Historical Posters.

If you enjoy our monthly play readings, why not get involved in our new monthly ‘play doings’ – Drama Incubator.

Are you interested in voice, physical theatre, or maybe writing your own scripts? This is a chance for you to get together with fellow thespians and work on whatever aspects of theatre you’re interested in without the stress of a major production. So come along and experiment!

Drama Incubator workshops are facilitated, but not taught. The DI team will always have an exercise up their sleeves, but people are encouraged to bring their own ideas to the workshops. Drama Incubator is what *you* want it to be. Just inform the facilitator (zoe at finnbritplayers.com) about your ideas in advance to keep things running smoothly.

No ideas? Don’t worry – you can always join in with one of the activities going on. Since this is our first meeting, the DI team have come up with a fun and easy intro exercise to what Drama Incubator is all about. So come along and get inspired for future meetings. Who knows where it might lead…

Spring/Summer Workshops at the new FBS premises, Fredrikinkatu 20 A:

Saturday 24 February, 3–6 p.m.
Saturday 17 March, 2–5 p.m.

Saturday 14 April, 3–6 p.m.
Sunday 27 May, 2–5 p.m.
Sunday 10 June, 2–5 p.m.

Performance dates

Spring 2007, the Players presented three plays:

Miss Julie, a full-length play, plus
The Maids and The Bald Prima Donna as a double bill.

Produced by Laura Robinson.

The plays:

Miss Julie
by August Strindberg
directed by Jack Leo

The setting is a country house somewhere in Southern Sweden in the late 19th century. Miss Julie is the count’s daughter; Jean is his footman. Their encounter during Midsummer night results in a collision of passion, and a conflict of sex and class arises which ultimately leads to the downfall of Miss Julie.

Cast:

Miss Julie - Irina Mikkola
Jean - Steve Porter
Kristine - Angie Hämäläinen

The Maids
by Jean Genet
directed by Fionna O’Sullivan

Inspired by a notorious murder case that shocked 1930s France, Jean Genet’s The Maids is a dramatic story of two sisters courting disaster as they act out their fantasy of revenge on their mistress. As powerful today as it was when first staged, personal and social agendas clash with tragic consequences.

Cast:

Maarit Hyytiäinen
Anna Maria Rawlings
Amanda Paajanen

The Bald Prima Donna
by Eugène Ionesco
directed by Bruce Marsland

Eugene Ionesco’s work uses drama to attack drama as an art form. The Bald Prima Donna is a landmark in such absurdist anti-theatre. No conventions of so-called rational communication are held sacred as the Martins come round for dinner to find that the Smiths have already eaten. The fire chief pops in to help pass the time, but not even the maid is everything that she seems. “Let’s go and slap Ulysses!”

The Bald Prima Donna is the world record holding play for longest continuous run. Read about it in The Independent.

Cast & Crew:

Mrs Smith - Amanda Thurman
Mr Smith - Matti Keltanen
Mary - Hanna Aaltola
Mrs Martin - Zoë Chandler
Mr Martin - Fabien Rapin
Fire-Chief - Perttu Lipsanen
Clock - Fredrika Fellman

Director - Bruce Marsland
Choreographer - Hanna Aaltola
Consultant en françaiseries - Fabien Rapin

Performance dates

Friday 11 May 7 pm Miss Julie
Saturday 12 May 3 pm The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna
Sunday 13 May 3 pm Miss Julie
Sunday 13 May 7 pm The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna
Tuesday 15 May 7 pm Miss Julie
Wednesday 16 May 7 pm The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna
Thursday 17 May 7 pm Miss Julie
Friday 18 May 7 pm The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna
Saturday 19 May 3 pm The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna — SOLD OUT
Saturday 19 May 7 pm Miss Julie

The plays were a guest performance on the Puoli-Q stage of Q-teatteri, Tunturikatu 16, Helsinki.

Tickets €8 for Miss Julie, and €8 for the double-bill of The Maids & The Bald Prima Donna.