The Caretakers: A Ten-Year Success Story
On Thursday 21st October 2010 at the Beaulieu Restaurant in Berne, the amateur theatre society, The Caretakers, was officially founded. The meeting, attended by a large number of potential members, was addressed by the famous Swiss actor Mike Müller, who gave an amusing and stimulating speech, with anecdotes from his rich acting career. This year, 2020, is therefore an important milestone in our history.
Our debut production, the first of many highly praised theatrical events, was a One-Act-Play-Evening premiered on 17th May 2011 in the ONO Theatre, called “Making History”. This was, indeed, precisely what we did, and since then, we have never looked back and, now, fifteen major theatrical productions and many smaller events later, we are celebrating ten years of unqualified success. The society is still going strong and we continue to enrich Berne’s amateur theatre world by putting on fresh, dynamic and inspiring theatre productions and we look forward to continuing to do so in the future.
Our latest project to mark these wonderful ten years, and in a sense a return our roots, is an exciting evening of short one-act plays, entitled “Exit Left Pursued by a Bear”, entirely written and performed by our members. Despite the troubled times in which we live, this production shows that we are up to taking on whatever life throws at us and turning it into something exceptional, emotionally moving and fun. (See flyer here.)
What has made The Caretakers so exceptional over the years has been the ability of all the people taking part in our productions, the actors, directors, stage managers, the costumers, the set builders, the props directors, the make-up artists, sound and lighting crews, every single person involved in a production, on or off stage, to work closely together in an ensemble, to give and take in an amicable and flexible manner, in a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere.
Furthermore, most of our productions are home-grown. Of course, we have done works by established playwrights but most of our plays are written by our in-house authors and we have even been cheeky enough to update Shakespeare, Dickens and Snow White. In the end, what has made our productions so stimulating and original, is this creativity and inspiration coming from all our members and makes The Caretakers rather special, if not unique. Long may this continue!
