We’re so pleased to announce that the HAG panto is back after a break of four years!

We’ve ‘auditioned’ many scripts and have settled on a fantastic, funny and contemporary stage play by Ian Hornby – Aladdin dot com.

Our musical director, Lesley Nicholls, who will be joined by additional production team members shortly, will be holding a read through at 8pm at the Methodist Hall on Wednesday 12th September – all are welcome, HAG members or not. Auditions will be held on the following Wednesday 17th September at the same time. If you’re not a member and wish to know more, please email: hartleyartsgroup@gmail.com

The dates for the seven performances are: Friday 18th Jan (7.45pm), Saturday 19th Jan (2.00pm), Saturday 19th Jan (7.45pm), Thursday 24th Jan (7.45pm), Friday 25th Jan (7.45pm), Saturday 26th Jan (2.00pm) and Saturday 26th Jan (7.45pm).

This promises to be a great laugh to rehearse, produce and perform – see you there!

We welcome (left to right) Tish, Maxine and Ben Boyle to the creative team working on our production of FRANKENSTEIN. A highly-skilled make-up crew is necessary not only to design the look of our characters (especially the creature of course) but to apply all the required looks prior to each performance. We’re looking at at least two hours to make-up the creature each night! That’s a terrifying prospect!

Ben’s experience in film make-up, along with Maxine, and Tish’s expertise (recently Beauty & the Beast at the Haymarket Theatre) means we have a tremendous team to take FRANKENSTEIN to the stage in October.

We’re thrilled to welcome new production members to the creative crew behind FRANKENSTEIN, joining our very strong backstage crew headed up by our Production Manager, Kit Williams (ITV drama Line Manager) and Stage Manager ‘one-man tour de force’ Geoff Donkin.

The music (and incidental) music and soundscape is being handled by synthesiser maestro Alan Melvyn Dicker. Alan is a highly-regarded musician and regularly plays gigs at festivals to an appreciative following. He’s also one the UK’s foremost expert in vintage synthesiser reconditioning. He’ll be pressing the lovely analogue sounds of the famous Prophet 5 and Juno 106 into tension-filled action for various cues throughout the play.

We also welcome Letitia on board for make-up. Alongside lead make-up artist, Ben Boyle, who’ll be handling the biggest challenge – The Creature, Tish will be managing the other cast of characters. Her last stage engagement was working on Beauty and the Beast at The Haymarket.

Our costume department is being led by the wonderful Sue Molyneux with her team, including expert Lesley Parish. We can’t thank them enough – their experience is invaluable!

Kevin Gillard joins us and brings his considerable lighting expertise and experience to designing our challenging lighting requirements.

Professional cameraman Martin Simpson-Hughes joins us to film some segments on location. Martin currently works on The One Show and Olympics coverage for the BBC. We’ll be on location soon!

These new crew members join David Walton, our set design wizard and Andy Large, sound desk, in forging the look and sound of FRANKENSTEIN. It’ll be huge!

We were delighted to be guests on the Alan Donegan Show which will be broadcast live on Radio Basingstoke on Sunday at noon. You’ll be able to listen to it via this link.

The show’s page is also available here: http://t.co/hCAPNDco

Victor (Gary Comerford playing Victor in this scene) cradles the lifeless body of Frau Frankenstein (Jo Long – thankfully still breathing) as we ramp up the rehearsals. The development of the characters is forming nicely and the play heads into quite extensive pre-production in all its various aspects.

However, we’re looking for a Properties Manager for this exciting show – this is a great opportunity to get involved in what promises to be an innovative and modern production the like of which HAG hasn’t seen before! Contact hartleyartsgroup@gmail.com if you’re interested in helping out.

With ‘just’ 14 weeks to curtain up on FRANKENSTEIN we began proper rehearsals last night after having dissected the script over the past few weeks and reassembling our interpretation. We primarily concentrated on the gait and vocal delivery of the Creature – an exercise in not being self-conscious!

HAG Youngstars took to the stage in front of a FULL HOUSE at the Victoria Hall last night (Wed 11th July) to perform an abridged version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’re so proud of the work they did in getting the production to the stage – it was a great evening.

A very public ‘thank you’ to Francesca and Lesley whose tutelage gave the fledgling group the confidence to get up and perform a quite difficult work. Here’s to more!

Just a quick reminder that HAG Youngstars are staging an abridged version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this Wednesday 11th July at The Victoria Hall at 7:30pm. Tickets are just £5! Please support our youngstars if you can…

A short snippet of video taken at this weeks HAG Rocks! session. What a great sound!

What a day! The sun shone on the righteous the entire Hartley Wintney Village 2012 Festival and the crowds turned out in force!

David Walton and Gary Comerford set up our ‘pitch’ in some challengingly windy conditions, but as soon as the festival got off to a start it all settled down. We were well represented this year: HAG Youngstars featured in the procession as the equine event for the Olympics theme. The crew managed to field TWO pantomime horses – an exceptional feat considering the fact that sun had shone throughout, the heat must’ve been unbearable.

HAG Rocks! choir belted out three great tunes across the site at 2.40pm (earlier than advertised – you should have seen the ‘muster rush’!). It was a proud moment for the choir and HAG members – their first large event with a thousand eyes watching. The crowd enjoyed the choir and many enquiries were taken on the stand afterwards.

Hundreds of leaflets were handed out by Sue Molyneux, Iain Eggeling and myself. Antonia Demetriadi managed to raise a good deal of money with her and William’s (her son) Darts Game on the HAG stand – the prizes were all donated or made by her – a sterling effort indeed and one I hope other HAG members will be inclined to help with in future as we were very under-staffed.

But, all in all, it was a day to cherish, a day to show the community that HAG is for everyone – on-stage or off, and above all a day of community and friendship.