 It is with great regret that I have to announce the recent death of Bernice Wolfenden. Bernice was one of a number of people who initially became active at The Questors when The Pisces Players disbanded. She was a long-standing Questors member who was active in a wide variety of areas. Her directing credits included Look Back in Anger in 2002 and for younger audiences The Princess and the Pea (2003) which she also adapted. Many of you will have seen the short plays she wrote for the Overnight Plays over the years and she was also active in wardrobe and as a performer. Latterly, she was the driving force behind Pop Up Theatre Company (the performance name of the rejuvenated Pisces Players), a community theatre company who ‘popped up’ yearly to perform in the Questors Studio Theatre.
One of Bernice’s biggest contributions to The Questors, however, is one that many members would not necessarily be aware of. Bernice spent many years teaching the early years groups (School years 1 and 2) for the Questors Youth Theatre. Her day job as a health and social care lecturer, specialising in nursery nursing at the Acton campus of Ealing Tertiary College, meant that she contributed much needed professional advice when we transferred from a volunteer run youth theatre to a professional one. She was one of two group leaders who continued in a voluntary capacity after QYT professionalised and took great care to mentor her successor, Carol Livingstone, who remains in post to this day. Bernice was always a calm and genial presence and much loved by the children she taught. I will miss her very much.
Alex Marker
BERNICE WOLFENDEN AT THE QUESTORS (Director)
2001 Carrying On
2001 Vincent Rivers (Excerpt)
2002 In The Summerhouse
2002 Look Back in Anger
2002 The Refuge
2003 The Princess and the Pea
2014 Busking (24 Hour Plays)
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