History
The first production was in May 1941 when Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was performed in cooperation with Merton College. Peter Bayley was the senior member from the start till the 1960s. After the Second World War, Univ Players was re-founded with a production of Measure for Measure in 1946.
In 1953, a young Maggie Smith appeared in a production of He Who Gets Slapped by the Russian playwright Leonid Andreyev, after attending a theatrical training scheme at the Oxford Playhouse.
Michael York was a Univ Players member in the early 1960s, before graduating with a degree in English in 1964. Peter Sissons, later to become a newscaster, was Treasurer of the Univ Players during his time studying at University College in the 1960s. John Albery took over from Peter Bayley as the senior member of the Players during the 1960s, after his appointment as a chemistry don at University College. He organized the Univ Revue for many years. The March 1963 production of A Man for All Seasons at the Oxford Playhouse was especially successful.
In 1974, Jon Plowman directed a musical version of Zuleika Dobson at the Oxford Playhouse, with a script by Reggie Oliver and music by Michael Brand. In the late 1970s, the Univ Players produced successful outdoor summer productions of The Seagull (1976, in St Hilda's meadow), A Midsummer Night's Dream and an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (1977 and 1978, in the grounds of Magdalen College School by Magdalen Bridge).
More recently they have had annual outdoor summer productions in the garden of the Master's Lodgings. Recent Productions include Sheridan's The School for Scandal in 2003, Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound in 2009, and Congreve's The Way of the World in 2010. In May 2011, Jack Peters directed Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector.
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