Ayckbourn, Dee & Sams Join Comedy Company TeamDate: 19 December 2001
Alan Ayckbourn, Janie Dee and Jeremy Sams have joined the illustrious members of the Theatre of Comedy Company, a unique production company run on a co-op basis by a collective of leading stage actors, directors and writers.
Alan Ayckbourn (pictured) has worked in theatre all his life and has written more than 60 plays - including Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval, Things We Do For Love and Comic Potential - which have been translated into over 30 languages and are regularly performed on stage and television throughout the world. Amongst his myriad awards are numerous London Evening Standard Drama and Laurence Olivier Awards and two Tony nominations. He is also the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where most of his work premieres.
Janie Dee is a multi award-winning actress whose credits include Comic Potential, Carousel, Paradise Moscow, Enter the Guardsman and The Three Sisters. She will soon be starring in the West End in the Chichester Festival production of Gershwin's My One and Only.
Jeremy Sams has translated various theatre and opera productions, written music for over 50 shows for theatre, TV and radio and directed many productions. He directed the current National Theatre hit revival of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, still running in the West End and now opened on Broadway where it has smashed box office records. He has also written the book for the stage musical adaptation of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which receives its world premiere at the London Palladium in April 2002.
The Theatre of Comedy Company was founded in 1983 by Ray Cooney in conjunction with some 30 other leading actors, writers and directors. The following year it purchased the West End's Shaftesbury Theatre, where it is based. Existing members include Tom Conti, Richard Briers, Judi Dench, Maureen Lipman and Nigel Hawthorne.
The company has produced or co-produced a number of regional tours and West End productions, often involving its members who are invited to advise on and contribute to its projects. Notable award-winning successes have included JB Priestley's When We Are Married, John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation, Terry Johnston's Hysteria, Noel Coward's Hay Fever and John Aubrey's Brief Lives. Projects planned for 2002 include member Alan Plater's Only a Matter of Time, at Newbury's Watermill Theatre ahead of a regional tour, and the stage adaptation of The Last of the Blond Bombshells.
- by Terri Paddock
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