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our audience and for the students doing the shows, so that there is something everyone can get involved with.” The management team also plans in some of the pillars of the theatre’s season, including the annual big panto, a really big part of Christmas in Cambridge. “The panto is the only real fixed slot that we know is a definite of each year,” says Vicky. “We work with Footlights and CUADC to put together a team for that.” The ADC also strikes a great balance between classic and contemporary theatre, serious work and comedy, with plenty of musicals, too. And 2019 sounds like it’s going to be another fantastic year for the theatre. “We’ve got such an exciting season coming up,” enthuses Vicky. “The one that’s already garnering quite a lot of attention is The History Boys . Our student audiences will really relate to the themes of applying to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. We’re also really looking forward to Angels in America Part One , a play that had a fantastic run at the Royal National Theatre in London. Then we
in management is a continuation of the learning curve that starts with taking part in student productions. I call working here ‘the best grad scheme in the world’ as it’s fantastic training in all aspects of running a theatre and invaluable experience that’s hard to imagine getting anywhere else.” When it comes to programming, the theatre has a very democratic approach, opening up the process to all students to bring their ideas forward for selection. “My predecessor described it brilliantly as ‘the Dragons’ Den of theatre’. There’s a panel made up of members of The Fletcher Players, CUADC and two members of the theatre management team, and we sit down and listen to a five-minute pitch from every student who has put in an application. We generally get around 100 applications for the season, sometimes a lot more than that,” explains Vicky. “From there, we put together the programme from all of those ideas. We always keep in mind that we need to achieve a good balance of different types of theatre, both for
have Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency , which is adapted from the Douglas Adams book. He was actually a member of Footlights when he was at Cambridge University, so it’s fantastic for us to be staging his work.” There’s no doubt that the ADC Theatre is a vibrant, important part of Cambridge’s theatre landscape – and is sure to be for many, many years to come. l ADC Theatre, Park Street, Cambridge CB5 8AS | 01223 300085 | adctheatre.com
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