This is a wonderful opportunity for poets to present their original work to an audience. It is also a wonderful opportunity for our local audience to hear the works of original creative artists.
This is an excerpt from the book Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell which is a fictionalized account of the death of William Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet (Hamlet), it is presumed from the Black Plague. It is not often realized that as well as being a playwright, Shakespeare also directed and acted in his plays. Although his son had just died he needed to return to London and explained it thus.
"It is so tenuous, so fragile, the life of the playhouses. He often thinks that, more than anything, it is like the embroidery on his father's gloves: only the beautiful shows, only the smallest part, while underneath is a cross-hatching of labour and skill and frustration and sweat. He needs to be there, all the time, to ensure that what is underneath happens, that all goes to plan."
I think this pretty much sums up how our directors, committee and, even the actors feel, especially in this time of our own plague.
