The Dundee Rep marks 80 years in the spotlight

A bold move to set up a permanent resident cast of actors 20 years ago has paid off handsomely, as Gillian Lord found out

Against the backdrop of Dundee Rep’s 80th birthday celebrations, the ensemble celebrates its own milestone, marking 20 years since the permanent resident cast of actors was established. It all started in 1999 when then artistic director Hamish Glen (brother of Hollywood actor Iain) launched an ambitious bid to form a permanent resident acting ensemble.

It was a bold move at a time when arts funding cuts were hurting regional theatre, but it was to prove a happy one.

Two decades later Dundee Rep’s Ensemble is arguably the only permanent resident ensemble cast left in the UK, certainly the only one left in Scotland.

Simply put, this means the permanent actors are working continually on Dundee Rep productions. It frequently means they’ll be performing one show in the evenings, while rehearsing another in the afternoons.

It means, in the precarious world of theatre, they are always in work and that their day job and acting job are one and the same.

They get to know each other’s abilities very well and develop a culture of their own, a professional approach to the theatre that is uniquely theirs.

“You develop a language,” says artistic director Andrew Panton. “You discover the work, rather than each other.

“Audience experience is at the forefront of everything we do,” he adds, with the challenge to satisfy their loyal audiences while also developing tomorrow’s theatre-goers, the younger people whose attention you compete for in a world of distractions.

“Why would you engage with a two-hour show when you have Netflix?” he asks, somewhat rhetorically.

Their programmes include Rep Engage, which actively encourages young people into the theatre through various performance initiatives, and young graduate actors earn a place in the company.

Readily available, varied and affordable entertainment was the original motivation for the establishment of the repertory movement in the UK in the early 1900s. It grew from the passion of Barry Jackson and Annie Horniman (the latter

thecouriermagazine being the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant), who made it their business to bring theatre to the people at a price they could afford.

More than a century later it seems Dundee audiences are not backward in coming forward, and their loyal support for the rep carries out into the streets.

“I get stopped in Tescos and asked ‘Why did you do that?’” says Andrew Panton. He is very happy with that; it means people are invested.

Emily Winter is one of the three founding cast members who have been with The Rep from the beginning, Irene MacDougall and Ann Louise Ross being the other two. When she started out with The Rep she had a very young son; now he’s 21 and studying musical theatre.

Emily calculates she has done more than 140 shows over the last 20 years. A Dundonian who “loves living on the river” she knows it’s a “slightly unreal existence, the world of theatre.” But her advice to young actors, including her son, is to be confident and realistic.

“You have to be confident, and you have to stay abreast of the enormous changes,” she acknowledges. She knows she’s in a dream job. “I get cast in all kinds of roles I’d never get ‘outside’,” she says.

The passage of time is measured in plays for Irene MacDougall.

“At times it doesn’t feel like 20 years,” she says, “and then you look back at older shows and it feels like an age ago.”

She, too, marvels that they have survived so well for so long. “When Hamish Glen set up the ensemble we were funded for three years,” she says.

“Ensemble isn’t just about the actors. We might be the ones who go on stage, but behind us we have the most incredible team of people often achieving the impossible. The trust you build up with them is invaluable.

“That is true of all theatres, but we have the privilege of building long-term relationships with everyone that works at the rep, and that is rare.”

If legend is to be believed, a long-term relationship suffered some stress in December 1939 when the new Repertory Theatre put on their first production, Hassain, a play by Elroy Flecker noted for its extreme length.

It is said a gentleman in the audience asked for a certificate to prove to his wife he really had been in the theatre all that time.