The best of Ayckbourn’s trilogy ‘Damsels in Distress, RolePlay is a hilarious piece with dark undertones, a vintage ‘dinner-party from hell’.

Ayckbourn is a master at handling people divided by class, accent, habits and race. A young well-to-do couple, living in a posh docklands apartment, have planned a civilised occasion when they hope to introduce each other’s parents and also announce their engagement.

The situation is tense enough before the arrival of two unexpected guests, one a lap-dancing gangster’s moll, the other her burly gun-toting minder.

Ed Clark
Actor: Justin, in Roleplay; Tom in The Accrington Pals; Peter in Blue Remembered Hills

Ed has played a variety of roles over the last few years and keeps up his skill set in a number of other disciplines, including singing and sports, making him a very useful member of the Players and to others, including film and tv production teams etc.

Emily Rosen
Actor: RolePlay;

More to come soon.

Tony Johnson
Actor: RolePlay; Much Ado About Nothing; Arsenic And Old Lace; The Vortex; Dark of the Moon; The Importance of Being Earnest, Barefoot in the Park.

Over the past forty years, Tony has appeared in more than 50 Plays, often in leading roles and twice winning Best Actor awards.
Since joining Canterbury Players in 1990, he has appeared in many of our Productions and  made his Shakespeare debut with us, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" and later as Leanato in Much Ado About Nothing.

Since then, he has played the homicidal maniac Jonathan in Arsenic And Old Lace, the elderly 'maiden gentleman' in Noel Coward's The Vortex, the hog-farmer Mr Allen in Dark of the Moon and more recently, the judge in the opening scene of Night Must Fall.

Sally Parker
Actor: Bazaar and Rummage; Roleplay; La Ronde, Two; The Vortex, Night Must Fall, Barefoot in the Park.

Sally made her stage debut as Noddy at FHODS Little Theatre at the age of ten, and on leaving school played Honey in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". She made connections with CDS while acting in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and was immediately cast as the prompt for "Dr Faustus". She went on to play Pattie in "Season's Greetings", Dr Scott in "Who's Life is it Anyway", Olivia in "Twelfth Night", Julie-Ann in "Roleplay", Ilsa in "La Ronde", Bell-Bell in "Bazaar and Rummage", the Landlady in "Two" and Olivia in Night Must Fall. Sally is currently a full-time mother.

Mike Rivarno
Assistant Director: Dark of the Moon;
Actor: Roleplay; The Accrington Pals; Dark of the Moon;

Born in Southampton in 1967 and raised in the seaside town of Deal, Mike embarked on a love of the Arts at very early age, with the Cinema just down the road from his home and a family TV that for the most part was always available to him. The eldest of 3 kids to a single hard working mum he was left pretty much to his devices. Like a lot of kids at that time the films of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were a constant source of entertainment and for Mike, inspiration.

In 1983 at the age of 15 the School he sometimes attended was putting together the first ever stage version of Alan Parker's Movie Musical ‘Bugsy Malone’ and Mike was awarded the role of Fat Sam Staccetto. The performance he gave is still mentioned to him to this day and the enthusiasm he received from people made him want to do a whole lot more, yet as he turned 16 and left the family home commitments to work and constantly changing his address restricted his ability to commit to the roles that came up in the local Dramatic groups.

It wasn’t until 1999, when he returned to his hometown of Deal that he was able to really get into a more regular pattern of drama, switching between the towns two rival groups he found himself performing in a lot of comedy farce and one or two pantomimes. In 2001 the town had a new group emerge and the chance to do some more dramatic work presented itself and Mike soon found himself performing in plays by authors like Harold Pinter, Debbie Isitt and Eugene O’Neil.

Having lived in the village of Ash since 2003 he has been working with Canterbury Players for much of that time and recently performed a play with Ashcan Theatre Company. He still gets the same buzz backstage now as he did way back in the summer of ’83 and is always looking forward to the next exciting challenge to present itself.

Selected work from the past:

On An Average Day 2009
The Accrington Pals 2007
Roleplay 2005
My Boy Jack 2005
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime 2004
Hobson’s Choice 2003
Whose Life Is It Anyway? 2003
The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband 2002
Betrayal 2001
Abigails Party 2001
Bugsy Malone 1983

Anne Hancox
Committee Member
Actor: RolePlay; Play It Again, Sam; Fallen Angels; Bazaar and Rummage; Two; The Vortex.

Anne's early performances were all in music theatre. Later came a shift to straight drama.

Her involvement with Canterbury's long-established amateur theatre group Playcraft for 21 years and now, with The Canterbury Players has provided a wealth of acting opportunities.

She has enjoyed numerous leading roles ranging from Nora in Ibsen's "A Doll's House", Katharine in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"; the drunken and shameless Arabella in Ayckbourn's "RolePlay" and Julia in "Fallen Angels" by Noel Coward.

Rani Innes
Performance Director, Actor.

Rani joined Canterbury players in 1998, a year after moving to the UK from Japan. Her love affair with theatre started over 30 years ago in India where she founded Spandana, an amateur theatre group, which is still going strong. She’s worked as an actress and director with several amateur and repertory theatre groups in India and the well-known English theatre group TIPS (Tokyo International Players) during her 17 years in Japan.

By profession, Rani is an English language and literature teacher and has worked as teacher and teacher trainer in countries like Japan, Austria, India, Malaysia and the UK. Until recently, she was the vice principal of Stafford House College in Canterbury.

Rani has directed several plays for The Canterbury Players since 1998: Death of a Salesman, Dr Faustus, Habeus Corpus, Whose Life is it Anyway, Desire Under the Elms and the well received Roleplay.

Derek Standing
President
Set Design & Construction

Some 42 years ago, Derek responded to an urgent advert from Canterbury Dramatic Society and although only 18 he got a job and even survived giving the cast a nightmare on his first set because he did not know that one has to add size glue to the powder paint.

Recent productions: RolePlay; The Birthday Party; The Accrington Pals; Play It Again Sam; Fallen Angels; Much Ado About Nothing; The Vortex; Night Must Fall; The Importance of Being Earnest; Barefoot In the Park.

Sarah Gooch
Actor: Much Ado About Nothing; The Birthday Party; La Ronde; The Accrington Pals; Bazaar and Rummage; The Importance of Being Earnest; Pint Sized Henry V
Performance Director Blue Remembered Hills; Two; Day After The Fair; Canterbury Tales; Pint Sized Henry V
Stage Manager - RolePlay
Vice Chair, Social Secretary & Actor

Sarah has been involved in theatre since the age of thirteen and has been a member of Canterbury Players for the past ten years. Recent acting roles with Canterbury Players include Meg in “The Birthday Party”, the actress in "La Ronde", Viola in “Twelfth Night” and May in "The Accrington Pals".

Mark Charles Smith
Actor: For Canterbury Players Gosforth's Fete; La Ronde; Fallen Angels; The Accrington Pals; Much Ado About Nothing; Arsenic And Old Lace; Dark of the Moon, Night Must Fall; The Importance of Being Earnest, Barefoot in the Park.
Sound Engineer for Blue Remembered Hills.
For Chilham Players: Seasons Greetings
For Kent Shakespeare Company: Twelfth Night.
A monologue orator for The Penis Monologues for the theatre company, Unfinished Business

Mark has appeared in a number of Canterbury Players productions, as well as end of year short films at universities in Canterbury and Hastings, as a film extra for various productions filmed in Kent including "The Other Boleyn Girl", "Wild Child", the 2011 production of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", as a player in a Chris Tarrant TV programme, as a major player in a KETV production called 'The Sea Shall Have Them' and recently took part in a pilot for a new sitcom aimed at getting onto the UK terrestrial channels.

Mark is looking for more TV and film work to get him out of the office once in a while.

My Facebook page.
Links to recent videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY9qcWjPomk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwE-cdMAu88

Liz Findlay
Actor: Play It Again Sam; Much Ado About Nothing;
Stage Manager The Birthday Party, La Ronde, The Accrington Pals, Gosforth's Fete; Play It Again Sam, Fallen Angels, Blue Remembered Hills; Two; Arsenic And Old Lace; The Vortex; Night Must Fall.

Liz joined the players in 2005 as prompt for Roleplay, rose to the position of chief of teapot bearing and has been stage managing since then in Pinter's "Birthday Party", Ayckbourne's "Gosforth’s Fete", Schnitzlers "La Ronde", Whelan's " The Accrington Pals" and Woody Allen's Play It Again Sam in which she also took the part of Vanessa.

Liz is trained in Fine Art and has exhibited locally. She designed the posters for Fallen Angels, and Blue Remembered Hills, Much Ado About Nothing and The Vortex.

Liz is going into business for herself, as a fully qualified Blue Badge tour guide, for which www.kent-and-sussex-tours.co.uk is the website.

Geoffrey began his acting career as Professor Theophilus Brainwave in a sci-fi play at his junior school in the 1930s.

After being Secretary of his college dramatic society at university, he became a junior school teacher and over his career directed more than twenty plays on the school stage.

Retiring to Canterbury in 1989, he joined the Canterbury Dramatic Society in 1998 for a production that never reached performance.

As Secretary, he helped to bring about the reuniting of C.D.S. with Playcraft in 2003 and established the pattern of regular performances before the public at the Gulbenkian Theatre, the Whitstable Playhouse and other venues.

He has appeared in seven productions of the group and directed the performance of the play ‘597’ connected with the unveiling of the statues, in Canterbury, of Ethelbert and Bertha by Prince Michael of Kent in May 2006. Geoffrey appeared as Signor Antonio in Much Ado About Nothing and Mr Witherspoon in Arsenic And Old Lace.

RolePlay's MAJOR SPONSOR:

St. Christophers School
An independent Co-educational day school and nursery for 3 - 11 years.
New Dover Road, Canterbury, Kent.
Sponsor for Alan Ayckbourn's "RolePlay", December 2005
"Where the needs of the child come first."