The School Dramatic Society However enjoyable play readings may be, a desire to act on a proper stage with scenery and costumes and makeup to produce and not merely to read a play will always be aroused. A beginning was made during evacuation when The Dumb Wife of Cheapside was produced at Torquay by Miss Vale. Since this production, like the Torquay pantomimes, was in a strange land and the cast included members of Drayton Manor School, the foundation of School drama is more generally regarded as the production of Shaw's Pygmalion at Greenford in 1943 The primitive conditions under which plays were staged at this time were in no way simplified by blackout regulations which limited rehearsals and performances to afternoons. Plain curtains, borrowed from neighbouring schools, formed the set, the bareness of which was relieved by elaborate furniture, including among other objets d'art, a grand piano, an enormous horn gramophone and a filing cabinet (weighing, it seemed, about a ton). The lighting was little more than illumination, and yet these forbidding conditions encouraged rather than deterred the actors. These early conditions were gradually improved in the next two productions ; scenery was hired, a flight of steps (now the steps) made, lighting improved by the installation of a switchboard designed by Mr. Sheldrake, and finally curtains provided and tabs to replace the thunderous screens for which Mr. Withrington so often apologised to the audiences. After The Importance of Being Earnest, (1944) and Much Ado About Nothing (1945), the task of production moved to Miss Harland (Miss Yale having left) and Twelfth Night became the first of Miss Harland's many successful productions. The new resources available for lighting and setting gave those who could not take an acting part an opportunity to help with school plays and so enabled the producer to attempt more ambitious productions, to introduce live music on a larger scale than the solo recorder of Much Ado and to experiment with bolder lighting effects. By 1948, the technical staff were ready to build and operate a set of flats, drop cloths and back cloths : with a new style of programme, more decorative by its cover design and more informative by the credit given to all helpers, the productions of Berkeley Square in February and The Rivals in November achieved a new standard in which the enthusiasm of amateurs was presented with professional skill in stage direction and management. At this time, the members of early productions organised in the Old Scholars' Association a drama group, The Prospect Players, who, during the past year, have continued the traditions of school dramatics with productions of Arms and the Man, two one act plays (which secured First and Fourth places in the Baling Festival) and finally a very difficult and controversial play, The Skin of Our Teeth by the modern American playwright, Thornton Wilder. The fact that the majority of those who have taken part in School plays maintain their interest by acting in or helping with the Prospect Players productions speaks highly for the interest and keenness aroused in the School among the many people who help with productions. If the standards of the past are maintained, as we trust they will be, there need be little fear for the future of drama at Greenfoi'd County Grammar School. R.F.K.