As the year draws to a close and the Christmas festivities fill the air, we find ourselves pausing and taking time to reflect on all the great things we achieved during 2024.

It’s been another busy year of great storytelling – from those that unfolded on stage in our professional and local theatre productions and those created behind the scenes, with young people and those within our vibrant community and theatre industry.

Looking back over the last twelve months, here are just a handful of achievements we are very proud of:

Recognition at the Mayor of Milton Keynes Awards

In March, Rosemary Hill, our Artistic Director, was recognised at the Mayor of Milton Keynes's Award for Arts, Culture and Heritage. This award recognises those who make a difference within our community. It is special as individuals are nominated by the general public. This goes to show how highly regarded Rosemary is and that her devotion to making the arts accessible doesn’t go unnoticed.

'Not A Game For Girls' - community theatre

In May, we produced ‘Not A Game For Girls’ by Benjamin Peel with our community theatre company, Pepper’s Ghost.

The play told the inspirational and yet unfamiliar story of the Dick Kerr Ladies F.C. - one of the most famous and celebrated women’s football teams in the UK.

The show was an absolute triumph, and we couldn’t have been prouder with our cast of local people and young performing arts students from MK College who joined us on work experience.

The students started on a demanding journey and stuck with it. It is rewarding to hear that they learned a great deal while they were with us and had their confidence boosted, which has helped their mental health.

In this production, we provided acting and production opportunities to over 30 local people, drama students and freelancers. It’s important to us to provide platforms to people within our community who have a passion for theatre – whether  on stage or behind the scenes. 

We want to offer as many opportunities as possible to all, particularly the next generation of theatre.

Feedback from 'Not A Game For Girls':

 “I’m very grateful that you chose to produce my play and was thrilled by the result. More importantly though it has helped keep the story of accomplishments against the odds alive and given young students in Milton Keynes a wonderful opportunity to experience being part of a theatrical production.” Benjamin Peel, playwright

 “A massive well done to our amazing Performing Art Students on a fantastic opening performance of “Not A Game For Girls”. You all showcased excellent commitment, dedication and performance skills. Well done for showcasing an incredible work ethic. Congratulations to The Play’s The Thing and the amazing team behind the production and thank you for offering work experience for our learners. Excellent. A wonderful performance.” Drama tutors from MK College

“Congrats to everyone involved for crafting such a terrific production. You should be very proud!”

“All different ages working together to create something beautiful as a collaborative achievement. Wonderful memories created together that will last a lifetime.”

Talking Heads

In June, we produced Alan Bennett’s ‘Talking Heads’ at York House based in Stony Stratford. 

Rosemary Hill and Sue Whyte performed two monologues - ‘A Lady of Letters’ and ‘Soldiering On’ - to a sold-out crowd.   

This production was to raise funds for Arts Centre, York House. It raised over £1,000.00. It also had rave reviews from audience members.
Here’s a sample of them...

“What a fantastic evening at York House. The two “talking heads” were wonderfully performed by Sue Whyte and Caroline Mann. Funny, poignant and desperately sad. More please!"

“Caroline Mann has the most incredible comic timing, but she can then turn it all on a sixpence and we feel desperately sad for Irene Ruddock, the lonely “lady of letters”.

“It’s always a joy to see Sue Whyte perform. Such a wonderful actor.”

Taking The Stage

In October 2024, our third Taking The Stage festival took place at MK Gallery Sky Room. Our four-day event celebrating women in the arts was a huge success. It was funded ay the Arts Council  to whom we are most grateful.

We enjoyed a keynote speech by award-winning playwright Winsome Pinnock, a headline play by Suzette Coon, nine other new plays by women playwrights, including Carly Halse, Rosemary Hill, Lisa Stenhouse and Chloe Wade, Subika Anwar-Khan, Tam Gilbert, Emma Burnell, Siân Rowland, and newly devised play by local drama students as part of MK Theatre Young Company and local theatre-maker, Heather Porte, plus we held important conversations with key industry figures, including Jenny Sealey OBE, Polly Kemp, Judith Jacob, Lynda Rooke, Jennifer Tuckett and many more. 

Lastly, we hosted two highly valuable workshops with Lesley Gannon from The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain about ‘Protecting your Intellectual Property’, and a talk with the UK’s leading Intimacy Co-ordinator, Ita O’Brien. 

Feedback from 'Taking The Stage':

 “Excellent. Please do more! It’s a voice representing the views of many, but which rarely get expressed in the mainstream.”

 “Wonderful and inspirational to hear from so many great women.”

 “Excellent and so thought provoking.”

“A great opportunity to listen to women who are passionate about women having recognition and a voice. Learnt a lot about the inequalities of prejudice faced by women in the arts and the struggles of people who have disabilities.”

Taking The Stage – the results 

Since its inception, we have welcomed over 1000 local people to our industry festival. We’ve showcased 24 plays by women playwrights from around the UK and Milton Keynes, and developed two of these plays by local playwrights, which we took on a UK tour in 2023.

We’ve had three keynote speakers, including the first women artistic director at The National Theatre, Julia Pascal, playwright April De Angelis, and the award-winning playwright Winsome Pinnock.

Forty-four female panellists have joined us to discuss topics with local audiences, including: 

• How are women represented in the industry? 
• How are creativity and mental health connected? 
• How can we juggle being parents and carers with a career in the performing arts? 
• Where are we with diversity and inclusion?  
• Do we tell enough LGBTQ stories?

Three groups of young theatre makers from MK College and MK Theatre Young Company have had the opportunity to devise and perform their own pieces.

This platform allows us to empower local artists and help great theatre reach and inspire diverse and new audiences. We are incredibly proud of how far this festival has come. This year we gave paid work to 76 creatives.  We have always prided ourselves on being inclusive and this year we engaged an Access Consultant to build on this. Every play was captioned and talks and panels had a BSL interpreter. There were also sensory tables, access video and extra large print programmes alongside standard programmes. The very positive reviews picked up on this. One reviewer saying "it was the most inclusive event they had even been to in Milton Keynes." We are very proud of this.

Other professional and community productions

We have worked with local actors, theatre companies and the community to create great local theatre. Most recently our community theatre company Pepper’s Ghost helped celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Stantonbury Theatre and performed a new short sketch by Rosemary Hill which celebrated several of the great Shakespearean female characters.

Training and education in the community

We have continued to train people of all ages in local schools, colleges, and businesses through our valued training courses and workshops.
We also commissioned a report on what young people wanted from the arts in Milton Keynes. We worked with Offset Projects on this and we shall publish the full report shortly. This was funded by the Arts Council and was also part of the “Taking The Stage” project.

Looking ahead to 2025

We have lots of exciting projects coming up in the new year...

One that we can tell you about is our next production of “A Taste of Honey” by Shelagh Delaney. 
It will be staged at Stantonbury Theatre from 14th - 17th May 2025.
An audition workshop for three of the five roles will be held on Friday 21st March 2025, 10am – 4pm at the Bath House in Wolverton.  More to come on this!  

We’re incredibly proud of what we have achieved for the arts in our community. Despite the challenges we face as an industry and also the lack of investment locally, we are committed to providing opportunities, building positive local relationships, pushing the boundaries and continuing to find ways to improve Milton Keynes' cultural infrastructure to inspire more theatre and arts.

We can’t wait to see what is going to happen in 2025.

Here’s to another great year of theatre.