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We are planning a series of rehearsed readings and hope to present a full-scale drama production during 2007.
We also have plans – finances permitting – to mount a pantomime.
We need more people to join the group How to join – as actors, backstage crew or just if you want to come to workshops.
The Venturers have been in existence for over 30 years. It can be hard enough for anyone to join an amateur drama group, but for a visually impaired person its doubly difficult. So the Venturers was founded with support from Acton Toc H in order to give visually impaired people a chance to act and get involved with all aspects of a production.
In the early days the Venturers were fortunate enough to be funded by Westminster Adult Education, which enabled us to hire professional directors and to run regular monthly workshops. Generous support by friends at the BBC and other theatres provided our sets and venues reduced cost. Regular charity advertising in our programmes also made a contribution to our resources. At this time we were able to put on at least two productions a year, and were even able to take productions on tour to France and Germany.
Sadly things changed in the 90s. Our source of income dried up when the charity advertising firm was sold, and we were no longer able to enjoy the kind of support we had from the BBC. On top of that, we lost our regular venue and had to find another which, by this time, had started to charge a realistic rate. We also lost our funding from Westminster as the numbers attending workshops had dwindled from about 20 to four or five. Productions dropped to about one every two years and we were caught in a Catch 22 situation, we didn't have the money to do very much, but a drama group that doesn't put on plays doesn't get a lot of publicity.
In 2003, a decision was taken to put all our efforts into fundraising. Our efforts were fortunately successful and we have since mounted a number of productions:
See some of our photos of these productions (link to photos page)
Numbers attending monthly workshops now average ten to twelve, and the Group is full of ideas about what they want to do next. For more details and dates of our workshops visit the What's On page
| Venturers Constitution |
| Chairman's Annual Report - 2002/03 |
| Chairman's Annual Report - 2003/04 |
| Chairman's Annual Report - 2004/05 |
© 2004-2006 Venturers Drama Group for the Visually Impaired, Charity Number 283164