Close season? Not on the STF!

It's that time of year when most of us are looking out our beach towels and factor 50 Sun lotion and looking forward to feeling the warm suns rays beating off our pale Scottish skin, for some of us that will be a reality, the lucky few who will fly off to foreign climes to forget all their worries. Enjoy yourself, you deserve it! Chill out and relax so those batteries can be charged for the year ahead.

Traditionally for all of us obsessed with theatre we have now entered the close season, venues across Scotland have closed their doors to get on with essential maintenance, most amateur companies take at least the month of July off to allow members to enjoy what little summer we get with our families, the kids are on holiday (and the teachers, a lot of them connected to this forum!) for six or seven weeks (they don't know how lucky they have it! Grr..) some of us have used their Holidays up for the summer to put in the graft on shows that have now come down and some of us will be taking our loved ones away for a break, yet at the back of minds out there, is the feeling that we are being deprived of something.........

I have been amazed on speaking to friends and fellow thesps with regards to the dismay that some feel at the loss of any rehearsals during the next month or so. Dissapointment that they are being deprived of some vital social interaction. Now don't get me wrong, my friends aren't sad and lonely people with little else to do, no these are outgoing, popular social butterflies with a large social diary who would have plenty to occupy their time with or without Amateur theatre but i am continually surprised by the comments I hear........."Oh it's going to be so boring"..........."What will I do for all those weeks".........."Oh I just don't know what I'll do with myself"...........
Personally I will throughly enjoy doing as little as is humanly possible for the next few weeks, i can quite happily be a couch potato, it doesn't cause me any problems. maybe it has something to do with having finished a show which obviously pumped more adrenalin around collective bodies than your normal canned variety of production would do, maybe it is the slow realisation that the chance to do a show which rocks so hard it hurts doesn't come around too often. What show? I hear you ask........well........

Oh you know which one! The afterglow still burns bright, it's going to be a long, long, long time before I can get this one out of my head and i think that goes for a few others too, The lovely Scaramouche (**Show Girl**) is still floating around Planet Mall somewhere, bless her, and as for Killer Queen, well.........She is still rocking and that's all I'll say for now....(Directions to the Dominion....no problem )

But it's OK for them, they can sleep soundly in their beds at night, after the Holiday the tables turn and the remarkable Iain Hughes and the spectacular Carol Sinclair have to deal with me......and my attempts to dance!!!!!!! But that's for another blog I think, maybe halloween!

So back to the Forum, c'mon everyone, tell me what you want to see on the site and like a genie in a lamp I will do my best to provide it. get emailing or posting and tell the world about the friendliest online theatre community out there.

Did I say 1000 members by Christmas? I didn't did I?

Woops..........

Mark.