About the Company

Chapterhouse Theatre Company is a professional touring theatre company, bringing its wide range of experience to venues across Britain. The company prides itself on fully accessible, traditional, but innovative productions. We now enter our eleventh season of productions, with a selection of ever-popular Shakespearean plays, adaptations of fine, classic English novels and our beloved children's show, featuring Milky-White the cow touring country houses and gardens throughout Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland. More details about our current productions for Summer 2011 can be found on our home page.

From a first year of performances at some thirty venues, with Romeo and Juliet, the company has established itself as one of the most successful and acclaimed touring companies in the country. In previous years, the company has toured a variety of shows, including Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing, together with performances of classic works such as The Mystery Plays, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. What's more, in 2004, the company produced the first West End show ever to tour open-air, ART, directed by Nigel Havers.

2009 marked our tenth anniversary year, with ever-popular tours of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet. The new tradition of our children's show continued, with Louisa's adventures in fairytale storytelling taking on the tale of Cinderella. Our children's shows have proved incredibly popular, and children and adults alike seem to love the dressing up and sing-a-longs that go with the show. For children of all ages we also presented the sequel to our King Arthur tales with a new production of Merlin the Magician (no connection to the BBC series), a magical adventure full of sword and sorcery as Merlin guides the Knights of the Round Table on their quest for the Holy Grail. Scripted by award winning writer Laura Turner, this was a thrilling evening's entertainment. Laura also provided the adaptation for our most ambitious tenth anniversary project; a brand-new production of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Rich in romance, betrayal, loss and love in the English countryside, this proved the perfect summer evening's entertainment, and we will be returning to Austen this summer with our follow-up production of Pride and Prejudice.

Chapterhouse now perform at over 130 different locations around Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland for their garden theatre season, including many of the most beautiful settings for open-air theatre imaginable. Every venue has something different to offer, and in recent years, we have performed at Chirk Castle, Exbury Gardens, the Royal Estates of Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor, and Castle Ward in Ireland.

Two tours of theatres in 2003 (A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet) and 2005 (Macbeth) were very successful and attracted audiences from both the regular theatre-going public and schools, many of which took part in workshops aimed at expanding pupils understanding of the plays through either text study or acting classes based on the play’s themes. We are now thrilled to be returning to theatres this autumn with our brand new adaptation of the chilling Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol.

So, what more is there left to say than what better way to spend a summer evening than picnicking with family and friends in the grounds of some of the most beautiful gardens in the UK and Ireland and joining Chapterhouse for an evening of

theatre under the stars

The Company

	Richard Main - Producer Richard has always had an interest in the theatre and music. In his youth he was a chorister and a self-taught musician. Following college, he was a member of avant-garde/jazz band 4,000,000 Telephones, releasing a number of acclaimed records and touring the UK and Europe. He became interested in theatre production in the ‘90s,when he produced for The Lincoln Mystery Plays, the Lincoln Shakespeare Company and numerous regional music events. At Bishop Grosseteste College in Lincoln he studied Drama and Rural Studies: a combination that has informed his career in producing theatre largely in the countryside. His favourite things are collecting things other people don’t want (he has a selection of autographs from ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Dr Finlay’s Casebook’), cinema and musical theatre. His daughter Grace, of whom he is very proud, is now in her third year of uni studying medicine and they share a mutual love of ‘House’, ‘ER’ and of course, ‘Doctor Who’.

	Gill Brummitt - Events Co-Ordinator Gill trained as a Primary School teacher and taught in Lincolnshire schools for 15 years. Wanting a new challenge she joined Chapterhouse for its very first touring production of Romeo and Juliet in 2000. She thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the process of creating such a special theatre tour and continues to do so each year! Gill’s role of Events Co-ordinator with Chapterhouse is both varied and rewarding. Away from the office Gill likes to spend time in the kitchen baking splendid creations, in the garden and greenhouse growing vegetables and also looks forward to days out exploring the beautiful British countryside and heritage.

	John Maven - IT, Sales and Administration After many years with the Company, John is a vital member of the office team. Trained in IT and Administration, he gets lumbered with fixing computers when they (inevitably) go wrong. John is currently involved in the design work for The Lincoln's Full English Festival and the Lincoln Shakespeare Festival.Hobbies include discovering new music, World of Warcraft and watching football.

	Chelsey Cottrill - Press and Marketing Officer Chelsey joined Chapterhouse in the August of 2010. During her first weekend with the company, she was tasked with helping to entertain Richard Griffiths on his visit to the Lincoln Shakespeare Festival, which was very exciting. She then took on the job of helping promote Chapterhouse’s Winter Tour and the highlight has to be all the wonderful theatres and people she has been introduced to. She is very much looking forward to the summer and hopes the sun is shining throughout. Her favourite things are travelling, reading and going to live concerts.

	Andrew Ashenden This is Andrew’s third year working for Chapterhouse as a director. Previous shows for Chapterhouse have been ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Merlin the Magician’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Andrew is also an Equity registered Fight Director and one of the founding members of the Academy of Performance Combat (A.P.C). He is Resident Fight Teacher for G.S.A, The Bridge and Royal Academy of Music (R.A.M). Andrew has worked as an Equity fight director for over a decade in television, film and theatre. Such projects include: BBC Wales on the Soap POBOL Y CWM since 2006; Welsh National Opera; The National Theatre of Wales; The Bristol Old Vic; Theatre Royal Bath; The Globe (touring company); Bute Theatre Wales; Birmingham Stage Company and Harrogate Theatre to name a few.

	Laura Turner - Resident Scriptwriter Laura has been working as a writer since graduating from the University of York with a BA in English Literature with First Class Honours in 2009. However, her writing career first began when she received a commission from Chapterhouse to script their 2007 children’s show. Her relationship with the company has blossomed alongside her other projects, and Laura is thrilled to have had the opportunity to write ‘Cranford’ and ‘Snow White’ for this year’s summer season, whilst also seeing the company’s new production of ‘Sense and Sensibility’, which she adapted for Chapterhouse in 2009. In recent years, Laura has worked with Travelling Light and Show of Strength theatre companies, had her work showcased at the Lincolnshire New Writing Festival and was selected to participate in Hull Truck Theatre Company’s PlayWrite programme. After completing a BBC New Talent training programme last year, Laura was one of fifteen new writers commissioned by the BBC to write the third series of E20, a spin-off of EastEnders. Laura’s episode will be shown in Autumn 2011, but in the meantime, she will be busy scripting ‘Cranford at Christmas’ for Chapterhouse’s forthcoming winter theatre tour.

	Hannah Robinson - Administration Assistant Hannah will be graduating from Lincoln University this September with a degree in Fine Art. She was thrilled when she got the job as Admin Assistant at Chapterhouse, enabling her to continue to be part of the arts. During her first month working at Chapterhouse Hannah has taken on a variety of tasks such as set painting, prop hunting and numerous trips to the Post Office, as well as the daily challenge of dealing with the vast array of brightly-coloured files full of paper work.

	Mark Burman - Production Manager Mark trained as an actor at The Drama Centre London and has many years experience in the theatre. He has now worked on and off for Chapterhouse for the past 10 years. He started as an actor for them, appearing in ‘Twelfth Night’ as Orsino, in ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ as Bottom, as Lord Capulet in ‘Romeo & Juliet’, as well as many other roles. He is now the production manager at Chapterhouse.

	Jason Addison - Production Manager & Lighting Designer Jason is from Lincoln and started his professional career working with Chapterhouse in 2005 as a Production Assistant and Technician on Romeo & Juliet. He revised this role in 2006 touring with Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night and Goldilocks on their national theatre and garden tours. Following this he joined Rhubarb Theatre and most recently PEEL in the role of Technician, working his way up to Production Manager and Lighting Designer. Highlights of this were Thomson Cruises and Warner Leisure Hotels including BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. This has enabled him to do the job he loves and travel the world at the same time. Jason is thrilled to be back at Chapterhouse and touring with their spring tours of Sense and Sensibility and Cranford. He would like to thank his friends and family for their continued support and hopes you enjoy the production.

Should you experience any problems, or notice any errors, please contact theoffice@chapterhouse.org