Vintage

News item excerpt from the Henley Standard

I WISH Henley Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society all the best with their production of Titanic The Musical, which will be staged at the Kenton Theatre for a week next month.

The casting of the musical has thrown up a remarkable coincidence. The captain of the RMS Titanic was E.J. Smith, who will be played by Tim Sloane. Paul Cockfield plays his second officer, Charles Lightoller.

This is the second time that Tim has had a Lightoller under his command. He served in the Royal Navy and, in the Seventies, commanded the submarine HMS Orpheus. His first lieutenant was Tim Lightoller, grandson of Charles.

News item excerpt from the Henley Standard

REHEARSALS for Henley Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society’s next production, Titanic The Musical are well under way, with the cast becoming more and more immersed in the fascinating story of the great ship’s infamous sinking.
With each week that goes by another local connection to the tragedy is discovered, and our picture shows Paula Silver, now aged 79, who plays a stewardess in HAODS’ production, sitting beside Titanic survivor Henry Etches, then aged 73, in his garden in Bournemouth in 1965. Henry was a young crew member when the Titanic sank, and his character is being portrayed in the production by Andy James.

HAODS chairman Terry Rymer said: “It is a fantastic production and a challenge for us fitting 50 cast onto the Kenton stage, especially when we have the ship actually sinking. The music is absolutely wonderful, and we can’t wait for our Henley audiences to hear it.”

News item excerpt from the South Oxfordshire Courier

"When news of a musical version of Titanic was first rumoured to be opening on Broadway, it become the butt of every joke in town. However, when it finally opened in 1997, it was acclaimed by some of Broadway’s most notorious critics and went on to win five Toni Awards including best musical and best score – the musical was yet another amazing success for composer Maury Yeston, whose previous musicals, Nine and Grand Hotel had both garnered a whole raft of awards on Broadway. Nine is shortly to be released as a movie. There is somewhat of a local connection too, as Maury Yeston has deep ties with this country with several close relatives living in Henley.

On WEDNESDAY 12TH NOVEMBER 2008, Kenton supporters Iand plummeting 30,000ft…all in the name of charity!!  Your support would be much appreciated and rest assured ALL money raised will go straight to the Kenton Theatre and not used to pay for our jump.  They will be paying for the jump out of thier own pockets.  Please enter your name and contact details at     www.sponsorformsonline.co.uk/Kenton
TheatreJump.asp  and give as much or as little as you wish.  The Parachute Centre will provide a certificate of proof once the jump is completed.  You don't have to enter any credit card details on the on-line form, so you will be contacted for your sponsorship money when they've safely landed.

Earlier this month HAODS member Jane Taylor collected our NODA award for West Side Story.  The Kathleen Oyler award was awarded to us for Best Choral Work.   Congratulations to all those involved, especially Director Lloyd White & MD Marc Pizer.


To view the West Side Story home page click on the poster. The 'crit' from Henry Hawes will be on line shortly.

We currently don't have a history section but we are looking to expand this feature of the site. The website has a comprehensive area listing old shows but there is a big gap between the most recent shows and those last captured on the 'old' site. What we need to complete this gap is articles, reminiscences and information from any show that you are familiar with.

Please be active in sending us whatever information you have so that we can publish it and keep it on the site forever.  The sort of things we are looking for would be old programs so that we can scan them,cast lists, photographs of old shows and any other memorabilia that can be scanned and put on the site.

Also, if you have any anecdotes or funny stories I am sure we can accommodate them.

Please send your contributions to Ioan Harvard  

You can now submit articles/content directly to Ioan using the "submit an article" link on the left hand side menu. 

"As a choreographer this is a truly wonderful show to work on, Jerome Robbins set a great challenge with this show and I was proud to create my own choreography with Lloyd White's vision and direction. Working with such a great cast from HAODS made it so much more exciting...working with Lloyd White is also a pleasure - he has a vision and dedication to his Direction that I truly enjoy working with..."Emma Jane Taylor 

It may not have escaped your noticed that a prominent page on our new site is the diary and calendar area. This area is meant to promote the society's day to day activities as well as being a handy tool to see what's going on today, this week, this month &c.

Key society members will be inserting entries into the calendar as and when the membership provide information on forthcoming events. Modifying and keeping the diary up to date is currently the responsibility of Ioan Harvard

The upshot is that we need information from you in order to populate the calendar so if you have a social event or important 'happening' to advertise then please let us know so we can put it in the diary for you.

Using this calendar in this way has a very useful side-effect, it happens to help promote the site through search engines such as Google. Google loves dynamic sites whose information is changing all the time, so by adding your event to the calendar you are helping the site's rankings.