Frampton Footlights is a well established amateur dramatic society. We present a major production every year, usually in February or March, alternating pantomimes with plays, and we often organise smaller productions at other times of the year.

Over the past 20 years we have raised many thousands of pounds for local and national charities; our present fund-raising efforts are focussed on supporting much-needed improvements to our village hall.

Most of our present members are drawn from the 400 or so inhabitants of the Parish of Frampton, but we are very pleased to welcome new members from any of our surrounding villages.

Frampton Footlights is a member of the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.

Contact Footlights at

Forthcoming productions:

Autumn Revue - October 10th 2009

Spring Production - March 18th 19th 20th 2010

Frampton Footlights Members' Newsletter

March 2009

(written by Mike Wright)

Footlights Contacts

Footlights new contact email address is: footlights@framptondorset.org.
Messages sent to this email address are automatically relayed to the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer (currently Mike Wright, Pam Wren and Tony Grace respectively).
* Please start using the new email address for Footlights business in general

The Pantomime

A great success-congratulations everyone!  At our recent committee meeting Tony reported that the total income from Puss in Boots was £3298 against a total expenditure of £863. This left us with a bank balance of £3534. We have donated £1500 to the Village Hall and will present £500 to the Weldmar Trust (having rounded up the raffle profit of £408). This leaves us approximately £1500 to fund future productions and pay routine expenses such as insurance.

Future Productions

Your committee has decided that the Autumn Review will be held this year on Saturday 10th October.
Ticket prices will be increased but catering will remain at the same excellent standard as last year.
We have also booked 18th, 19th and 20th March, 2010 for our spring production.
* Comments or ideas for either of these productions?

Bristol Old Vic

BOV is bringing Tess of the D'Urbervilles to the village hall on Friday 15th May 2009.  We need to find beds locally for 20 cast members/crew.
* Can you help with accommodation?

Seating

The current practice of cast members reserving seats for friends and family can cause problems with people arriving early to get a good seat and finding them all taken: your committee suggest that this practice should be avoided in future. We could eliminate the problem altogether by selling tickets with allocated seat numbers, but this would pose problems for our ‘sales force' which we've yet to get our minds around.
* Comments appreciated

AGM

This year's AGM will be held in on 28th April at 7.30pm in the Sheridan Room. A committee meeting will follow immediately afterwards.
* HELP! Tony is retiring as treasurer at the AGM and a replacement is urgently required!
* Please contact us well before the AGM if you wish to nominate someone to join the committee.

Play Reading

It has been suggested that we might revive the idea of reading plays, sketches perhaps, all in a social environment (i.e. with a glass or two of refreshment-perhaps in someone's home). This could provide a way of identifying material for future productions, or simply be done for pleasure.
* Anyone volunteering to give it a go?

List of Members

Members of a society are generally defined as those who've paid their subscriptions, but as we don't demand subscriptions anymore we don't have a definitive list of members. This newsletter has been distributed to everyone that I personally have listed as ‘taking an interest in Footlights'-which is my definition of a member.
* If you have received this newsletter you are now on our list of members. If you do not wish to be included please let us know.
* If you know of any prospective new members please put them in contact with us

Footlights owns a huge collection of costumes, created by village ladies for the many pantomimes produced over the past 25 years. These were the subject of an exhibition - Pantomime Extravaganza - which filled the village hall in May 2008

In Spring 2008 we put on three one-act plays - Last Tango in Frampton by David Tristram, Between Mouthfuls & Gosforth's Fete, both by Alan Ayckbourn