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This month’s episode focuses on Red Velvet, the 2012 play by Lolita Chakrabarti.

Laura has been speaking to actor Papa Anoh Yentumi about his role as the young Ira Aldridge in the upcoming Crescent Theatre Company production of the play.

We also learn more about the play and the actor who inspired it, the American Ira Aldridge, who was the first black actor in England to play Othello on the professional stage.

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Each episode takes a look at a different aspect of the wonderful world of amateur theatre, and features an amateur theatre-maker talking about their theatrical life, theatrical loves, and the times when they’ve ‘died’ on stage.

In this month’s episode, our Backstage Pass holder, John O’Neill, speaks with director Dewi Johnson, who’s recently been working in London’s West End theatres including as Associate Director on Simon Nye’s ‘The Crown Jewels’ at the Garrick Theatre, starring Al Murray and Mel Giedroyc, and as Assistant Director on Ben Elton’s stage production of ‘Upstart Crow’, starring David Mitchell. You’ll find Dewi’s resumé contains its fair share of comedy!

Dewi’s journey from teenage director, to Drama School student, to West End associate director, took him through the Crescent Theatre (Birmingham), along the way. Here, Dewi’s also had amateur experience over the last 11 years including as an actor, costume designer, set designer, and of course director, most recently directing the Crescent’s dazzling 2019 production of Jessica Swale’s semi-musical play ‘Nell Gwynn’, set during the heart of the Restoration period in England in the late sixteen-hundreds. Dewi’s expertise in and love of the Restoration era theatre is an absolute gift to his cast and crew, and so, of course, to his audiences too.

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This month we're focussing on two great American musicals of the 20th century.

We speak to actor, singer and dancer Jo Brookes about her role as Louise in the Crescent Theatre's production of Gypsy.

We also go backstage with Tinker's Farm Opera and speak to director and choreographer Emma Harley to find out more about the history of society and its forthcoming production of Guys and Dolls, which Emma is directing.