QUESTSTORIES
THE QUESTORS NEW PLAYS FESTIVALS
11th Festival 1970

Programme Note:

Since 1960 The Questors has presented a New Plays Festival every year and so far we have presented 37 new plays. The whole purpose of the Festival is to enable new authors to see their work mounted as well as possible; something that is not possible within the strict constraints of the professional theatre, although "fringe theatre" and lunchtime theatre clubs are now available to short experimental work. 

Finding three plays for the Festival is always a difficult task. The theatre receives the scripts of two to three plays a week on average, which are circulated to a panel of readers. If the opinions expressed by the readers are favourable, the members of the Plays Com- mittee read the script and decide whether the play should be produced by The Questors. We have in the past commissioned plays from dramatists and indeed you will remember that last year, the tenth anniversary of the Festival, we commissioned all three plays from dramatists whose work had linked them closely with the theatre. 

This year our commissioned play is "The Others" by David Mowat. The second play in the Festival, "All The Lonely People", is by an acting member of The Questors, David Pearson.

It had been our intention to stage David Campton's "Wonderchick" this year but a previous commitment to another group had to be honoured. However, we were fortunate to obtain "The Life & Death of Almost Everybody" as soon as it left his typewriter.

[Programme Note]

The Plays

THE OTHERS
(David Mowat)

ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE
(David Pearson)

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ALMOST EVERYBODY
(David Campton)

Theatrical personalities leading the after show discussions included:
Dannie Abse, Michael Billington, Kitty Black, E. Martin Browne, Ronald Bryden, Martin Esslin, John Kershaw, Michael Macowan, Frank Marcus, Robert Rietty, John Russell Taylor, Simon Trussler