Magna and Young Magna Performing Arts celebrate 45-years

Alongside NODA we are celebrating an anniversary this year. Ours is the forty fifth anniversary of our community theatre group. Our beginnings never led us to believe we would still be presenting live theatre to audiences.

We started as part of a group of people from the village of Credenhill who put on a concert. I had written a short comedy sketch for the local playschool to perform and it was loved by our audience. Giddy with our success, somebody said: “We should do a pantomime and you can write it”, I was asked because I was fresh from my training as a speech and drama teacher and so they all thought I would know how to do it. I was very apprehensive having only ever seen one pantomime, however, I gave it my best shot and we performed Sleeping Beauty that December, under the name Credenhill Clangers. We had the music teacher from the local school as pianist, (somebody who had been in an operatic society) to work out a few movements, costumes supplied from our own wardrobes or charity shop finds and we were away.

We and our audiences enjoyed it so much we decided we would become a permanent fixture in Credenhill but probably needed a name which gave people more belief in what we were doing. We opted for ‘MAGNA’ which was the name of an area close by and meant Great in Latin. We felt we deserved this name now we had one production under our belts!

We then went down the road of a comedy play which was awful. Some actors went on with words hidden anywhere they could find and during the interval, one fifteen-year-old drank a half bottle of spirits pinched from her parents’ drinks cabinet. We had some explaining to do and after that alcohol was strictly forbidden back stage and still is!

Shortly after Magna was established, some of the adults suggested we start a youth group and so Young Magna was born for eight to sixteen-year-olds. Then things really took off. We explored different genres and different venues from theatres to fields to local churches to village halls. Once even performing on a stack of pallets with side curtains made from bin bags at one venue. We competed in the National Drama Festival for one act plays and won several awards for best direction, actor, set and original play.

Our fame spread and soon we were performing our annual panto, plus two plays per year and a Youth Showcase. Our youth group often acted alongside adults. Having never been interested in making a profit, we soon decided to cut our costs by playing original scripts and the honour fell to me to provide these. We have covered many difficult and topical subjects and since joining NODA have been fortunate enough to earn nominations and awards most years.

Some of our members transitioned from Young Magna and into Magna and stayed while others went on to achieve professionally in areas of the theatre as performers, technical and stage technicians. We are and always have been a fully inclusive group and have fantastic success stories with people, who find it difficult to communicate in everyday situations, who have found a home onstage where they can be whoever they wish to be.

We have come a long way in the last forty-five years. We now have our own space in Credenhill Community Hall which we are gradually turning into a proper working theatre space with lighting, staging, and technical advancements. NODA representatives are invited to our productions and we are always pleased to get their feedback.

Forty-five years is a long time to be with a group of people who become more than friends, more like family. It is still a joy to see our youngest to oldest succeed no matter what problems are going on outside our magical world of live theatre.

Betty Morris