Quality theatre. Local ingredients. In the heart of the Westcountry.
New Professional Theatremaking
About the Common Players
Common Players is an arts charity formed in 1989. It was set up to create engaging performances for and with people in communities around the Westcountry.
Activities have ranged from outdoor family performances, through participative and educational projects, to indoor touring works about issues and subjects that face rural communities.
We have created more than 30 original productions, often commissioning local writers and employing other professional theatre artists, and at times performing to audiences totalling over 15,000 in any one year.
We have at various times been supported by Arts Council and County and District Local Authorities to do this. Common Players have been commissioned to create original work in response to briefs by Exmoor National Park and The National Trust.
We’re a light and nimble low-cost and high-value company, creating theatre art for and with a diverse constituency.
We work in response to opportunities that exist, and we also create new initiatives which we believe to be important, partnering with other arts organisations in order to deliver our ambitions.
Our current project is SHELTER, a collaboration with Theatre Mittendrin, performing on our Lifeboat Theatre
We're Common because we value giving access to those who would not normally see themselves as consumers of theatre art, both as audience members and participants.
We're better theatre makers than we are website creators...
To learn more about the Uncommon Players, Click here.
Our Artistic Director is Anthony Richards.
Anthony trained at Exeter and Kansas Universities, and on the beaches of North Devon, Anthony has been acting and directing professionally for ages. He founded Common Players and has conceived and directed almost all of our work.
He has also directed numerous community and participatory productions including Like A Buoy on Dartmoor,with a cast of 120, Pinter’s Betrayal for Brown Paper bag Co, and Speaking in Tongues with Uncommon Players as well as national projects such as Fallen, presented at The South Bank Centre.
You can contact Anthony here
Common Players is registered as a limited company and charity and is governed by a board of Trustees:Richard Jennings, Richard Feltham, Keith Palmer and Janet Hookway