January 22, 2016
West Meon Theatre was founded in 1993 by Mary Dawson. It’s a community theatre which performs in a wide range of venues, from the village hall and local pub garden to Winchester Theatre Royal. In 2008, Mary approached us to find a way to extend the stage in the hall. We provided a package of Metrodeck units, all standard sizes bar one so that the extension perfectly matched the width of the hall’s stage. Since then the group has been using the staging in different ways according to the different venues.
It was used in an ‘in the round’ production of “Cider with Rosie” back in 2009. This show was performed in a tent in the gardens of local The Thomas Lord Pub and won the coveted Daily Echo Curtain Call Award for production of the year.
Cider with Rosie
In 2013 Neville’s Island was performed in West Meon Village Hall, with the Metrodeck being used once again as a stage extension.
Neville’s Island
And just last year the Metrodeck was used to create different levels as part of a traverse production of Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”.
A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Every couple of years WMT is on the phone to us looking for some different legs or an extra accessory to enable its stock to work in a new way. But essentially, it’s the original stock which is still going strong in all these different formats.
As Mary Dawson remarks “Having Metrodeck since 2008 has transformed our work in West Meon Theatre. It is easy and simple to use and store. We are able to move it around from one venue to another and with the varying size extra legs recently bought have the flexibility to create some imaginative staging areas. Stage Solutions have always been helpful and very responsive to our needs. We wouldn’t go anywhere else!”