Graig Du Theatre Players
Information
The players are in the process of being formed. I will post further updates in the next few days. My intention is to form a community theatre group, with four probable performances a year, to encompass the work of playwrights in the Rhondda as a beginning. Original work will be encouraged. I would like to hear from any members, when I give out further information, if they would be willing to partake in the first staging. This will include actors, actresses, directors,who would be interested in supporting the idea to get valuable experience at the start of their careers. It would be a learning curve for me. I intend staging my play" Sorrow for my Sons" to publicize the group within the next few months. The full version of this play "Painting the Darkness" is to have a performance with the Fluellen Theatre in 2017. The play tells of the mysterious death of William Dillwyn Llewelyn, the eldest son of Sir John Dillwyn Llewelyn, who was found shot dead in the woods of the Penllergare estate on the afternoon of his engagement to Lord Dynevor's daughter in August 1893. The play explores the background to events, the inquest held the following day into his death, and William's friendship with J.Arthur Gibbs, the author of "A Cotswolds Village". I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the late June Lewis-Jones of Fairford, Glos, who helped me considerably with the three-act version of events. After answering my advertisement in her local newspaper, she was intrigued by my discoveries and, as she held Gibbs's diaries in her possession; she was also an author in her own right, she said she would aid me in any way as long as it did not jeopardize her work. June said that I had seen something in the unfolding events that no-one had realized before. Gibbs's strange requiem poem to his dead friend is well worth reading, as is his version, which I believe to be truthful, of the events that took place at Penllergare on the fateful day.
Location: Porth, Rhondda
Members: 10
Latest Activity: Dec 11, 2018
Discussion Forum
Street Singers of the Valleys. Gwillym Pen Pwyll.
The one regret my father had while growing up in Dinas was that he did not pay much attention to the stories that were being told. The stories he did tell me were fascinating to the say the least,…Continue
Tags: Du, Theatre, Players, Graig, Pwyll
Started by Glyndwr Edwards Nov 21, 2015.
Unknown Stories from the Rhondda.
Ebenezer Chapel, pictured above before its demolition in the 1960s, was one of the…Continue
Started by Glyndwr Edwards Nov 17, 2015.
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Comment by Glyndwr Edwards on February 23, 2016 at 5:55
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I will certainly have a look at this. I have not heard of the name of Fiona Macleod, or William Sharp, and it sounds similiar to another enigimatic authoress: Patience Worth. She also had her historical works dictated to her by a spirit. Thanks.
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Comment by Josh Edwards on February 23, 2016 at 5:42
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An interesting tale for you. I was researching an article last week and came across the name of Fiona Macleod, a Victorian novelist. It appears that she was actually William Sharp, a Scotsman,who wrote the stories under the influence of the mysterious woman he saw as a child through to adulthood. He described the girl as having hair like buttercups. A number of books were written and the best is entitled By Sundown Shores
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I would be most interested in pantomine tales for children. Some of the old English Fairy Tales have a macabre taste for bloodshed that is unsettling. One tale in particular, if slightly changed, would make an unusual show: Nix Nought Nothing. There is enough violence in this story that Quentin Tarantino would get plenty of mileage from.
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That last comment was most interesting. I know of one British folktale that would be perfect for a pantomime: Gold Tree and Silver Tree. This is another version of the Snow White story with a difference.
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Comment by Ann Stelling on February 15, 2016 at 9:20
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All the best to Sian Bethan England's company with their staging of Cinderella later this week. I was wondering if the Graig Du Theatre Players would be interested in staging pantomimes. Perhaps British source material, obviously based on the Cinderella myth, could be used in a contemporary setting: Tattercoats and Caporushes.
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We were having a curious discussion on superstitions the other day. An obvious answer is to raise your hat out of respect when a funeral cortege is about to pass by. One answer that surprised me was this: it is unlucky to meet a funeral procession and the ill-luck may be averted by raising your hat. This raising of the hat is also claimed as showing respect to any evil spirits that may be around the hearse.
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Thanks, Josh. I did not know of this film.
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I have found another film with Nova Pilbeam from 1941: Spring Meeting, co - starring Michael Wilding
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There are some interesting stories you mentioned yesterday. I had the updates and I will send them soon.
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The reading of the H.P.Lovecraft plays sounds intriguing. Lovecraft's life was strange: his mother told him he was a girl until he was six years old and both parents died in an asylum. His first story was published by a magazine in Wales. I believe there has to be a doubt about some of his stories because he improved on ideas that other people had written.
Pages (108)
- Brook Cottage, Dinas.
- The Dinas Pals'1914.
- Death of Arthur Rees, Appletree, Dinas. 1908.
- Boot Inn, Dinas.
- Dinas Road before the clearance.
- The Prince of Orange pub, Dinas Road
- The Last houses to be demolished in Dinas.
- Inkerman Street, Dinas. "Concretes"
- Bethania Chapel, Dinas Road.
- Gwillym Pen Pwyll's"Ragamuffin Tales"
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