“What an achievement. 45 years, Lucy and the team you have done an absolutely fantastic job.
Although sad to hear the news of the company closing, I totally understand and very much respect even at this difficult time, not wanting to compromise on the ethos and spirit of the company.
This spirit was established right at the start of the company when I remember Mike Sherman and I trying to thrash out a name while standing in the middle of a very cramped costume cupboard at the New Milton Arts Centre. This was after being given the go ahead from the then ‘Manpower Services’ scheme to establish, with a year’s grant, a professional community theatre company to tour and serve the different communities of the New Forest and its surrounding area.
We came up with Forest Forge because we want to forge links with and establish relationships with the said different ‘New Forest’ groups.
So, we were able to audition for actors to join the team and set out on creating high quality theatre projects for schools, village halls, community centres as well as establishing a regular tour of devised productions for residential care homes across the region.
In addition we held children’s summer holiday workshops, as well as producing a summer season at New Milton Arts Centre with productions of Macbeth, old time music hall, Ayckbourn’s ‘Time and Time Again’ and finally an original musical adaptation of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ well before Andrew Lloyd Webber’s version.
It was after this substantial body of work during the first year and a growing reputation for the quality of our work that we were able to approach the then ‘Southern Arts’ Hampshire County, New Forest District Council and New Milton Town Council for financial help to continue the company’s work into the future.
The rest as they say is history.
What different times we seem to be living in now.
As Lucy says, the work of Forest Forge has always been about people and the different people our work has touched, from the young people developing skills, confidence and long lasting relationships through their youth theatre workshops and productions, to the elderly audiences whose enjoyment was clear on their faces when we set up, sang and performed stories and past events close to their hearts.
The news of the company closing has brought back to me such happy memories of the productions we created, the audiences we entertained and involved along with the skill, creativity, commitment and shear hard work of the actors, designers and artists we worked with during my 13 years as Artistic Director. They were brilliant times, memories that will always be with me.
That work and spirit has been taken on and developed even further by all those who followed, none more so than Lucy who has just been incredible since she joined the company all those years ago.
To Lucy and the team, many thanks for all your tremendous hard work.
I think we can all take joy, pride and satisfaction in being part of an extraordinary 45 years in the unique life of Forest Forge Theatre Company.