2009 The Vanishing Elephant
>2007 Something in Common
2007 A Time to Keep
2006 The Gifts of Time
2005 Jealous River
The Vanishing Elephant
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Camden Road, Tunbridge Wells 2009
Performed in The White Tent on Quarry Road, Tunbridge Wells 8th – 20th June 2009
Mary Root’s life changes dramatically during the events of 1888. First there were the Skeleton Army street riots, then the Baltic Sawmill murder and the petition to save two unlikely lads from hanging. The costs were high – betrayal, loss and two illegitimate children. Twenty years on, those two children’s aspiring lives have become inseparably linked. Alice Roots, who shows the spirit of adventure her mother had once, whilst Frederick Medhurst’s ambitions ‘to be someone’ are thwarted by the outbreak of war. Tunbridge Wells has become a hotbed of radical suffragettes but in 1914 these remarkable women put down their banners of protest to join forces with the working women of Camden Road in the war effort. The war brings more than its share of tragedy, but the tenacity of the women sees them not only pulling through, but emerging stronger and freer.
A not-to-be-missed production, with a local company of 150 take its audience into the heart of real events.
"In an instant the audience are surrounded by the skeleton riots, become a crowd at the suffragette parades and civic celebrations; ships float above their heads, then it’s a giant effigy of the Kaiser that’s towering above them. In the flicker of an eye the space becomes a thriving market, a courtroom, or the battlefields of the Somme." "This is an historic production with poignant and powerful music that will be remembered long after, contributing to the rich and vibrant history it celebrates. It’s a call to arms to the people of Tunbridge Wells to respect Camden Road’s history and potential." "Claque Theatre is an internationally renowned company and the leading exponents of community plays. They have produced plays across England and in Europe, Canada and America. This production marks the company’s thirtieth anniversary, but the first in Tunbridge Wells, their hometown."
| Writer & Director | Jon Oram |
| Project Director | Catherine Hylton |
| Directors Assistant | Deborah Ellis |
| Designer | Nina Ayres |
| Costume | Enda Kenny |
| Musical Director | Mathew Morley |
| Composer | Benedict Giles |
| Assistant Designer | Bonnie Corbett |
| Design Assistants Faye Brinkworth Jess Hillier | |
| Technical Manager | Matthew Henry |
| Prop Makers Eleonora McNamara Nicki Miners | |
| Puppet Makers Jake Collier Jade Peplar | |
| Milliner | Janet Spriggs |
| Scenic Artists | Vanessa Ledbetter Lucy Schmidt |
Something in Common
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Groombridge and Witham 2007
Performed at Hale Court Farm, Withyham, East Sussex June 18th to 30th 2007
The play starts in 1831 with the audience becoming accomplices of to illicit prize-fight. Everywhere traders, musicians, escapologists, magicians, arm wrestlers vie for attention. Inside and out farm labourers are gathered in groups – there is a sense that something brewing. Soon hayricks are burning and farm machines are being smashed; events that begin what is to be a fifty-year struggle between landowners, tenant farmers and labourers as they try to come to terms with the dramatic changes of an industrial revolution. The Honourable, the Reverend Reginald Sackville West, later the Earl De La Warr, sacks the West Gallery Quire as part of his quest to bring morality and order and so begins his own journey of trying to hold things together. From this dawn of discontent come the railways, and an influx of strangers. This story, with contemporary resonance, is about how a community survived.
"Two years in the making Jon Oram’s epic story is drawn from the people of Withyham Parish and Old Groombridge past and present. Every character really existed but this is a fantasy tale woven from facts. A cast of 130 local people envelop, involve and enthral the promenading audience. Strong traditional music blends with the action as rioters, trains and runaway pigs move through the audience along with elegant weddings, exotic gardens and the arrival of the new buildings of Groombridge on the backs of navvies"
"This is a not-to-missed production by the founders and leading exponents of community plays in collaboration with a community re-establishing its relationship with its own unique and remarkable past and in the process discovering we all have something in common."
| Writer | Jon Oram |
| Director | Varrick Grimes |
| Designer | Nicola Fitchett |
| Stage Manager | Catherine Hylton |
| Musical Director | Dave Arthur |
| Production Assistant | Sam Wilkin |
| Costume Supervisor | Natasha Ward |
| Puppet Maker | Nina Ayres |
| Technical Manager & Lighting Designer | Matt Henry |
A Time to Keep
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Dorchester 2007
Performed at The Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester 16th November to 1st December 2007
This was a Dorchester Community Play production directed by Jon Oram in association with Claque Theatre
As Dorchester faces the threat of Napoleonic invasion of the summer of 1804, a schoolmistress called Jenny Hodge proposes mounting a play about the town's history, to entertain the troops and sustain civilian morale. Initially resistant, many of the women of the town become caught up in the project, including the youngest daughter of a distinguished Dorchester family (Mary Stickland), who uses the play as a cover for her romance with a young smuggler (Isaac Gulliver). Starved of resources, the play's costume makers become dangerously reliant on smugglers to provide contraband materials for the production, which becomes a front for a widespread black market operation. An eager theatre-goer, King George the Third promises to travel from his holiday home in Weymouth to attend the play. A limp young man, favoured by Mary Stickland's parents, discovers her secret romance and informs on her lover to the excise officers, who raid the play and arrest the young smuggler, who threatens to expose the leading figures of the town.With only two days to go before the opening of the play, its producers hatch a desperate plan to protect their project and their reputations. As the king arrives for the performance, Jenny, Isaac and Mary make startling discoveries about themselves and each other. The play ends with Mary making the most difficult decision of her young life.
"A spirit lifting evening of playfully told local history...a shared, imaginative experience, communicated with winning passion" Guardian ****
"Wonderfully vivid with real characters... powerfully evocative of the way provincial England, far from the madding crowd is still deeply haunted by its own past" Sunday Times ***
"...an incredibly moving experience." Western Gazette
| Writers | David Edgar and Stephanie Dale |
| Directors | Jon Oram |
| Director’s Assistant | Kate McGregor |
| Play Officer | Sarah Peterkin |
| Musical Director | Tim Laycock |
| Designer | Arianne Gastambide |
| Assistant Designer | Chryssanthy Kofidou |
| Costume | Rosie Armitage Maxine White |
| Costume Assistant | Sharon Bourke |
| Stage Manager | Cath Hylton |
| Outreach Coordinator | Polly Shepherd |
| Lighting Designer | Stephane Cantin |
| Asst Lighting Designer | Woody Peterkin |
| Choreographer | Louise Barrett |
| Signers | Wendy Ebsworth MBE Lynne Cull |
The Gifts of Time
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Guelph, Ontario Canada 2006
Performed in The Old Quebec Street Mall, October 23rd – November 6th 2006
The play begins in 2027 as Guelph celebrates its 200th birthday with a parade that contains striking social commentary on issues that face our future. The story then shifts back in time and we see the building of Guelph into a city by its founding fathers and the price and indignity paid by the indigenous people of the area. The play then focuses on two parallel stories: first the Coughlin family, Irish immigrants of 1820’s, and an Afghani mother who immigrated to Canada seventeen years ago. The Coughlin’s are catholic family in constant feuds with the protestant Oliver family, whilst the Afghan mother deals with the sharp realities of contemporary racism after the events of 9/11.
| Writer | Dale Hamilton |
| Director | Jon Oram |
| Assistant Directors | Varrick Grimes Augusta Supple |
| Designer | Nicola Fitchett |
| Assistant Designer | Barbara Bryce |
| Production Assistant | Lucy Oram |
| Stage Manager | Ed Langevin |
| Musical Director | James Gordon |
| Choreographer | Tanya Williams |
Jealous River
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Tonbridge 2005
Performed at Hayesbrook School, Tonbridge from April 18th to 30th 2005
‘Jealous River’ is the story of a remarkable and turbulent century that was to change the face of Tonbridge forever. Set in the mid to late ninetieth century against the background of the coming of the railways and the decline of the river, James Christie a smart entrepreneur comes to Tonbridge to make his name and fortune. All but forgotten, Christie transformed the town with his engineering activities along the river but finally fled leaving huge debts and two pregnant sisters. The play follows the fortunes and fate of Christie’s illegitimate daughter who falls in love with Irish Jimmy fated to perish in the tragic Heartlake disaster and drown in the floodwaters. Destitute she becomes embroiled in the infamous bullion train robbery.
"Tour the ancient town and meet the extraordinary characters that lived here. Be swept along on a tide of thrilling events, as the action swirls around you, be they skaters on the frozen river, flying trains or floating barges. ’Jealous River’ is an exciting promenade production directed by this country’s leading community play company: full of remarkable images, film and evocative original music"
"This is a unique opportunity to be part of a very different theatrical experience – the people of Tonbridge sharing in a celebration of events that forged the town."
"Travel back two hundred years with a cast of over 130 and share in an epic adventure inspired by people of Tonbridge who lived through extraordinary times."
"Exciting, moving and often very funny"
| Writer | David Cregan |
| Director | Jon Oram |
| Designer | Nicola Fitchett |
| Musical Director | James Gordon |
| Other Compositions | Brian Prothero |
| Costume Supervisor | Julia Knight |
| Assistant Designer | Stuart Wyatt |
| Stage Management | Catherine Hylton Ed Langevin |
| Technical Director | Tony Marder |