[musicals fan]

There is an article by Diana Rigg in Saturday's Telegraph on the use ( or lack of ) star actors names in advertising by our subsidised companies. She mentions the practice of listing the cast alphabetically and not mentioning stars' names in posters etc.

I can't tell one way or the other, but it would seem to lead to the situation of many star actors ( and we all know their names) who are very familiar to theatre goers but are unknown outside the theatre going public. Olivier, Burton, Gielgud. Richardson etc. were always the "stars" and nobody disputed it.

The story is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh...0/13/do1306.xml

[David]

There's a lot more fun in being listed alphabetically that there is in being put at the bottom of a hierarchy. In fact, if I were a young actor, and my name were given equal prominence with, for example, Diana Rigg, I'd probably be fairly pleased about that.

Her argument is weak- a star name will sell a play regardless of how high up it is in the cast list- look at McKellen's Lear/Seagull; he was listed alphabetically, yet still sold out, but the Seagull productions in which Gaunt played Sorin didn't.

I also diagree with her in her arrogant supposition that people don't see plays because of directors and designers- I do, and I doubt that I'm alone. Also, posters can often be designed long before the cast list is confirmed, but probably not before the creative team.

As for actors who are unknown outside of the theatre world, they are unlikely to sell more tickets than they would do anyway (i.e. the coach trade wouldn't be interested in them), so what we're basically talking about is filmstars/TV stars (such as Rigg) who feel that because they're 'famous' they should be shown off as being better than their less well established colleages.

Sorry if this is very jumbled, I just disagreed with so many things in that article, and tried to get them down concisely!

Reminds me of the old joke, forgive me for making a second McKellen reference;

"Have you heard? Ian McKellen's joined the actor's company!"
"Really? What's he playing?"
"The servant."
"Blimey, didn't see that coming. What's the play?"
"The Servant."

[Biddy]

I too get annoyed when theatre companies don't include actors' names on promotional material.

Clwyd Theatr Cymru (referred to as Theatr Clwyd in the article, though its name changed in 1998)
is actually one of the very BEST companies I've come across re displaying Cast info -
its flyers can almost always be depended upon to list the names of ALL Cast members (albeit alphabetically).

Many companies touring to local theatres don't seem to display ANY Cast names on their flyers -
or in the theatres' Season Brochures.

I suppose pressures on space in Season Brochures might affect whether Marketing Officers of some Receiving Theatres perhaps include names of only Nationally-known Cast members -
although for me, omitting Cast info is VERY false economy:
I might 'take against' a production if I have to make a lot of effort to find out who's in it -
and I don't just mean its 'stars'.

(However, I realise that Season Brochures have to go to press in advance of the start of the Season,
by which time some of the shows to be included might have cast only their Leads.)

[smith]

This is the full cast list for Theatr Clwyd's production of The Cherry Orchard:


Simon Armstrong, Robert Blythe, John Cording, Julian Lewis Jones, Michelle Luther, Caryl Morgan, Thomas Padden, Robert J Page, Alex Parry, Maria Pride, Carol Royle, Johnson Willis


Can't say I've heard of any of them to be honest...would it have been worth doing 'star' billing on the promotional material?