The Minack Theatre

On Monday 6th June 2011, we went on a college trip to the Minack Theatre to have a look around the Rowena Cade museum and a look around the actual theatre, stage and dressing rooms. It is an open aired theatre which is built on the edge of a cliff of the Porthcurno Bay. The Minack theatre was designed and built mainly by Rowena Cade who was born on 2nd August 1893, in Spondon, Derbyshire. Rowena moved to Cornwall and moved into the Minack house which overlooks Porthcurno Bay.  In 1929, a local village group of players had staged Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in a nearby meadow, repeating the production the next year. They decided that their next production would be The Tempest and Miss Cade offered the garden of her house as a suitable location, as it was beside the sea. and her gardener made a terrace and rough seating, hauling materials down from the house or up via the winding path from the beach below. In 1932, The Tempest was performed with the sea as a dramatic backdrop, to great success. Miss Cade resolved to improve the theatre, toiling hard over the course of the winter months each year throughout her life with the help of Billy Rawlings and Charles Angove so that other performance groups could perform each summer. n 1944, the theatre was used as a location for the Gainsborough Studios film Love Story, starring Stewart Granger and Margaret Lockwoodbut inclement weather forced them to retreat to a studio mock-up. In 1955, the first dressing rooms were built. Since 1976 the theatre has been registered as a Charitable Trust and is now run by a local management team. Rowena Cade died on 26 March 1983, at the age of 89. Nowadays, the theatre is used from June to September for a full summer season of 17 plays, produced by companies from all over the UK and visiting companies from the USA. The theatre is open for visitors throughout the rest of the year. The 75th Anniversary of Minack was celebrated with a production of The Tempest in August 2007, directed by Simon Taylor and performed by the Winchester College Players.

I thought that the visit that we had to the Minack Theatre was very interesting and was a good way to see how these unique performers show off their work. I really like the fact that the theatre is open aired, I think that where it is located is stunning, I like the idea of sitting in the theatre watching a show with the stunning scenery which surrounds it, I think it gives off a nicer feeling when your there compared to other theaters which are all inside. This is the only open aired theatre I have ever been to and I really enjoyed the experience. I also enjoyed looking in the small Rowena Cade Museum because I have learnt alot about the Minack that I didn't know before our visit. I have been influenced by the Minack a little bit because I really like the idea of being outside in the sunshine watching a show or viewing someone's work.