Societies at Glasgow cater to every student’s needs – so what’s on offer for theatre kids on campus?
There’s a lot on offer at Glasgow, and more than I could ever have imagined in my high school that had one show every six years with no drama department. The good news for theatre enthusiasts is that there’s something to suit everybody’s talents and interests, no matter how niche.
For students looking to get involved with theatre at Glasgow, STAG is often the first one they come across, and for good reason. This society is one of the biggest and oldest at the university, and there are opportunities for everyone to get involved. There are two new-writing festivals (the February edition of which gets judged for the Edinburgh Fringe), one mainstage production, Play in a Day, Open Slot (for more absurdist writing) and Freshers festival New Talent Nights, for which auditions take place Sunday 20 September, this year with the theme ‘Monsters’. If performing isn’t really your thing, there are other ways to get involved with STAG, including their Freshers pubcrawl and STAG 101.
There’s a lot of crossover between the members of STAG and the Shakespeare Society (GUSS), which celebrates, you guessed it, the works and characters of Shakespeare. The society puts on two Shakespeare plays in Cottiers each year, most recently an 80s-inspired Twelfth Night and a high school-based Hamlet. This society also puts on two festivals a year, one with shorter plays of new writing, and another being introduced this year. Auditions for this year’s first mainstage production are fast-approaching, and for Freshers activities they are holding ‘Shit-faced Shakespeare’, which really does what it says on the tin.
Every year there’s a joint karaoke between three of the theatre societies at Glasgow, where the members have been unashamedly blessed with my rendition of ‘Man or Muppet’. However, there’s some great vocals on display here too, as along with STAG and Shakespeare is the musical theatre society, Cecilians. This society puts on a remarkable, West-End worthy performance once a year, with ‘Carrie’ last year and ‘Me and my Girl’ to follow. The play has an open ensemble policy, meaning anyone can join, so it’s worth getting involved! The weekend following Freshers’ week is their Musical in a Weekend, which is 48-hours of rehearsals, singing and choreography, to be performed on a Sunday night. And, with this year’s musical being ‘We Will Rock You’, you won’t be under any pressure!
If none of these are your style and you want shows to be more laid-back and with less competitive auditions (as everyone is guaranteed a part), look no further than the Alexandrians. This society is more than just a theatre society– their plays are all Greek twists on other famous tales. Last year’s ‘Beauty and the Beast of Olympus,’ for example, twisted the familiar fairytale into a play featuring Greek characters and Gods. They have two of these mainstages a year, with auditions soon approaching for their first, as well as their annual ‘City Dionysia’ festival of shorter plays.
If you want to practice theatre but aren’t really into performing in front of a crowd, then the university has a plethora of open-mic and small group drama societies to join! Most notably, these include GLASS, Improv and DADA. All these societies have something completely different to offer: GLASS is the resident comedy society at Glasgow, where budding stand-up comedians can try their hand at comedy at one of their open-mic nights. The Improv Society is pretty self-explanatory, and every week they meet for ‘Improv Tea Time’ where they practice improv and drama activities, which is not only a great laugh, but also improves your confidence if you’re a budding actor! Finally there is the DADA society which is…hard to explain. It celebrates and creates absurdist theatre, holding ‘Zurich Nights’ once per semester for performances of poetry, songs and anything else you could possibly think of. I once watched someone just eat a watermelon and watch reels, it’s a wild time.
So, there is plenty of space at Glasgow to express your creative side, whether you want to be on stage, behind the scenes, or just try something completely new. If you want to see what these are all about from the people that helped make them, come along to PASS on Thursday to see performances from all the societies mentioned here!
