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How does your company choose their next production? Do you have a Play Selection Committee: a group of volunteers prepared to read a dozen or so texts in the hope of finding one to accommodate your current talent? Or do you scour the area for a tame director who has a play he or she has always wanted to do? Do you draw up a long list and then put it to the company to decide by ballot? Have you a Programme Manager who makes a decision by reading all the local and national reviews to find out what the public are going to see this year? Or are you finding it so difficult to come to a unanimous decision that you end up with “How about a Shakespeare?” Well, why not?

Skimming through the last few months of the Amateur Stage Diary, I found surprisingly few Shakespeares, and most of these were part of a programme in premises owned by the company or by a group specialising in Shakespeare production. Michael Shipley’s recent 1998/1999 review of statistics provided by the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain shows that Shakespeare was second only to Alan Ayckbourn as the most often performed playwright in 750+ productions performed in Little Theatres up and down the land. Does this suggest that amateur companies working in village halls, local authority venues, schools, professional theatres and so on can’t really risk Shakespeare? Please write and tell me if this assumption is wrong. But, I very must doubt that many societies feel like attempting a Shakespeare when they look at their potential audience.

Shakespeare is a great challenge, but so is Checkhov, Ibsen, Pinter etc. The big difference is the verse and the “turn-off” many adults recollect from their days in the classroom. Shakespeare must have a committed and well informed director if it is to succeed. It must also have a cast with a uniform ability to handle the verse and a willingness to work hard on the lines. Amateur companies would be well advised to leave Timon of Athens alone and not be tempted by the Grand Guignol plot of Titus Andronicus. The Histories are not easy, dramatically, technically and costume/prop-wise. I have seen well meant productions of Richard III damaged by homemade costumes and silly stage fighting. Shakespeare is not foolproof; a bad production is infinitely worse than a failing Alan Ayckbourn. Choose your title carefully, know your limitations and cultivate your strengths. The Comedies work best for amateur groups, but an imaginative Macbeth or a politically charged Julius Caesar can enthral a village hall audience.

Don’t do Shakespeare because you think it might raise your company’s status or because you think it will attract a local schools’ audience. Believe me, a schools’ audience is the most critical and demanding of them all! Doing a Shakespeare is not a decision to be taken lightly. Informed audiences tend to shy away from amateur productions, preferring the assurance that professionals do it better. They must have got this idea from somewhere. If you are going to do a Shakespeare, be sure that it will not endorse that idea.