Kay Francksen

Andrew Ellison

Ann Garner

From school days, Ann Garner (Director) has either directed or performed in plays - everything from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Restoration Comedy, Melodrama, Pantomime and a vast range of 20th and 21st Century classics - to musicals, cabarets and open-air productions.  Ann has taught Drama for over 30 years, running youth workshops in the 1980s at The Theatre Royal, Bath, and The Merlin Theatre, Frome.

In 1994 Ann was the co-founder, with Andrew Ellison, of Next Stage Theatre Company and has since directed nearly 100 productions for the company.  Ann runs Next Stage Youth and regularly takes drama workshops into local schools.   In 2005 Ann opened The Mission Theatre, home to Next Stage, and a jewel of a venue for local, regional, national and international performers.  Next Stage goes from strength to strength, with over 100 affiliated members. The company’s impressive touring record is about to be crowned with a week’s run off-Broadway in July, with scenes from Intimate Exchanges by patron Alan Ayckbourn.

Intimate Exchanges has been acknowledged within the press. To read the preview of the performance, please click here. To read the reviews of the show, performed at the Mission Theatre, Bath, please click here.

Reviews of Intimate Exchanges, published in New York

This evening of selections from Intimate Exchanges by prolific British playwright Alan Ayckbourn is brought to the Midtown Festival courtesy of England's Next Stage Theater Company, a company of which Ayckbourn is a patron. The press material says that there is actually a series of 32 interrelated plays containing optional endings and peopled with a variety of characters, all of whom are played by just two actors. This allows a sumptuous opportunity for the actors involved.

For this presentation, three of the scenes have been selected that involve a housewife named Celia, who is at a static point in her middle-aged marriage to the stodgy Toby. She is wooed by the randy groundskeeper Lionel, who is also dating the feisty housekeeper, Sylvie. Celia and Sylvie are played by Kay Francksen and Toby and Lionel by Andrew Ellison. Ayckbourn's dialogue is lively and humorous as we watch each actor struggle with life choices onstage for just enough time for the other actor to be making a quick change and pop back out as the their alternate character. It makes me want to read all the rest in the series.

Director Ann Garner makes full use of the theater space, and both actors do a nice job of transitioning back and forth between characters, though at the performance I saw the pacing was a bit slow and there were a lot of pauses between lines in the first few scenes. Francksen especially creates a nice contrast of age and energy in her two characters. And it was a joy not to worry about authentic British dialects!

Although no one is credited with the simple set, costume, and sound design choices, I thought that they suited the festival situation very well, and the lighting design by Kris Nuttall is well executed.

by Judith Jarosz

Into sultry New York, we’re happy to welcome a cool breeze of English eccentricity.

Two seasoned performers handle four characters in this short three-act comedy of manners and class consciousness by the well known master of English comedy; Alan Ayckbourn

As members of the theatre group – The Next Stage Theatre Company of Bath, England - Andrew Ellison and Kay Francksen deftly handle near instant wardrobe changes as they switch from character to character in a humorous send up of English suburban life.

The director, Ann Garner, is more a choreographer as the scenes get set up, set down, as the characters go from pompous to prosaic, from the ignored to the overwhelmed.

The play, about an hour plus, proves again that a well written, intelligent script in the hands of capable performers is a much-needed respite from most of what is thrown on New York stages.

by Jerry Minkow

Lots of TRU friends are strutting their stuff on 36th Street, and this is the last weekend to catch them. Go to the Midtown website at www.midtownfestival.org and check for details of the following TRU shows:

• Intimate Exchanges by Alan Aychbourn, produced by TRU members Karen Eterovich and Linda Selman. Beautifully produced, directed and acted - this is a company imported from Bath, England and they are not to be missed! (From Bob: "Thoroughly entertaining, a perfectly acted tour de force for two actors in four roles in three scenes.") Tonight (Friday) at 6:30, Saturday at 9pm.

by Bob Ost, TRU Newsletter August 2008

Ann Garner with Sir Alan Ayckbourn and another of Next Stage's patrons: Sir David Hare