Shakespeare 4 Kidz News

Summer Term is here and thoughts turn to lessons in the outdoors, sports days and of course the school play.

Shakespeare 4 Kidz provide you with the perfect choice for a musical production of a classic Shakespearean story. We provide you with the script, the score and the music for your own production of our hit shows. All six of our titles have been produced in professional theatres across the country.

Whether you’re dreaming of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, trying out Twelfth Night or having a go at Hamlet – the S4K Put on a Play pack is the production for your school.

S4K Royalties and Licences are included in the cost – there is nothing else to pay. The full Put on a Play pack is just £250 + VAT and can be ordered online by clicking here.

The 2013 tour of S4K’s The Tempest ended on Monday 25 March with a return visit to the Theatre Royal Wakefield to perform the shows that were lost to the snow back in January.

As ever, there was “never a dull moment” – snow caused chaos back in January when shows in Wakefield were cancelled at the very last minute due to snow (we were actually on stage at the time!); the shows in King’s Lynn were cancelled before we even got there; the cast coach got caught up in the snowy conditions on the way to Worthing and they had to spend the night in a Pease Pottage car park! We were headline news the following morning live on Sky News.

It was not all snow-dodging though – we spent three weeks in the sunny Arabian Gulf touring Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Thanks are also due to our partners and colleagues at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon – where we rehearsed and opened the show back in January.

We launched our iProgramme app too – our innovative show programme for S4K’s The Tempest which can be downloaded free to Apple and Android devices. We’re certain to see more of these in the years to come.

As Prospero (sort of) said “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and now it’s time for a well-earned sleep” – thanks to everyone who came to see us.

SEE THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ON THE STAGE WEBSITE

The recent snowy conditions have proved to be a rather pesky matter. Across south-east England, blizzards, ice, train delays and traffic jams have become commonplace.

And while the UK’s Highways Agency, which manages the country’s roads, is reported to have said that it was prepared for the cold snap, touring theatre company Shakespeare 4 Kidz certainly was not.

The troupe was en route from Gravesend to its next destination of Worthing when trouble hit. Finding themselves in a traffic jam on the M23 when they were only halfway to the seaside town, the busload of company members decided to stay put and take refuge in a local service station for the evening.

Little did they know that the next day, after a less than glamorous night spent on the coach, they were to be interviewed by Sky News reporters for the broadcaster’s morning bulletin.

Despite this, company manager Emma Bennett barely had a hair out of place during the interview and managed to see the funny side of her company – currently touring Shakespeare’s The Tempest – experiencing a storm of its own.

“We were totally boxed in at the service station – wheels were spinning, it was blowing a blizzard and icy cold. It was quite clear we would have to spend the night on the bus,” she told reporters.

She then added: “Everyone in the company helped keep morale up while in the midst of our very own winter’s tale.”

Any excuse for a plug.

The Shakespeare 4 Kidz Theatre Company were in the headlines on Tuesday morning - but sadly NOT for our theatre performances!

S4K Theatre Company Manager Emma Bennett being interviewed live on Sky News from the S4K tour bus

We had got caught up in the snowy conditions on the M23 and A23 travelling to the next day's venue in Worthing, and made the decision to bed down on the coach in the relative safety of the Pease Pottage Sservice station car park.

The next morning the Sky News team were on hand to report the chaotic travel conditions and came on board the S4K tour bus where our intrepid troupe had spent the night.

Emma Bennett, the Company Manager, explained in a live interview on the 9am news programmes, how we'd got caught up in the snowy weather and decided to abandon the journey to Worthing and bed down on the coach in the car park.

As Emma told Sky viewers: 'We were on our way from Gravesend to Worthing when we got caught in the traffic jam on the A23. We always try to make it to a venue but unfortunately we got totally stuck and had to sleep in Pease Pottage Services all night on our tour bus.'

'A couple of members of our cast went to get some food in a local pub and told me a nice story of a local family living nearby taking in a young family for the night.'

'We were totally boxed into the services, wheels were spinning, it was blowing a blizzard and icy cold; it was quite clear we would have to spend the night on the bus.'

'I think we are generally unprepared in this country for this kind of weather, and as we are now in the middle of March, it was a bit of a surprise. You'd expect to be packing your winter woollies away by now!'

The snowy scene from the S4K coach

She added: 'In the difficult and challenging circumstances the company were a great team and the camaraderie on the bus was great. Our coach driver Ian was brilliant and handled the whole thing really well. People were sleeping under seats, across seats, on the aisle of the coach, and the odd snowball may have been thrown. We all agreed we were very lucky to have such a luxurious 'corporate-style' coach as there were so many people stranded in freezing cars on the motor way with no toilet, food or blankets. Everyone in the company helped keep morale up whilst in the midst of our very own 'Storm' - our very own 'Winter's Tale'!"

Unfortunately, the snow resulted in Worthing schools closing for the day and the shows at the Pavilion Theatre had to be cancelled.