After playing a short season in Falkirk, Scotland, Aurora Productions took over the lease for the Little Theatre, Great Yarmouth, from the incumbent repertory company.
Though often a poor business venture, repertory theatre was in many cases an actor's first job and training ground, and a springboard to a chosen career in the performing arts.
Repertory companies presented a diverse range and high quality of play to an audience often remote from the cultural centres.
In the five years Aurora Productions Limited was associated with the repertory theatre, new plays by A P Dearsley, Bridget Chetwynde and John Davenport, and Macgregor Urquhart were staged.
The company produced a figure approaching 200 different plays with appearances for 180 and more actors, among which included Ruth Kettlewell, Donald Adams, Richard O'Donoghue,[1] John Franklyn-Robbins, Gabrielle Hamilton, Frank Pemberton, Derek Bond, and Joss Ackland.
Following an Arts Council of Great Britain initiative to sponsor or encourage a repertory company in each of Scotland's main towns, Aurora Productions Ltd announce the proposal to run a play each week in Falkirk and stay indefinitely if the reception is good.
Under arrangement with Mr R W Schofield, Aurora Productions begin "A Season of Famous Plays", six weeks at the Little Theatre Great Yarmouth, with a view to continuing repertory performances indefinitely, conditional on sufficient support.
[8] The Season opens with "No Evidence for Crime", a new play by Macgregor Urquhart, the resident producer with The County Repertory Company.
[10][11] Aurora Productions aim to present a full winter and summer programme through 1947; a weekly repertory with six performances including a Saturday matinee.
By the summer season, the company is supporting a cast of ten players, a full time Producer, and a scenic director; artist Michael Thomason.
[12][13] Into 1948 and Peter Elliston, Director of Aurora Productions, takes a "hands on" approach to his role and makes the first of many appearances on stage at the Little Theatre.
[24] By the end of the summer season, 1949, problems plague the Little Theatre and the neighbouring Lowestoft Repertory Company where the necessary aggregate attendance figure for a successful week would be 2000 from a population of 45,000.
1950 and Aurora Productions and a local amateur company, "The Masquers", join forces to present "Saint Joan" by George Bernard Shaw.
The company, who have had an uphill battle to make the Yarmouth public theatre conscious, decided on this ambitious venture to attract more support.
[28] The Aurora Repertory Company are presenting a three-week "season" of plays at the Lowestoft Playhouse, starting with Ronald Pertwee's comedy "The School for Spinsters".
Peter Elliston has intimated that an "East Anglian Repertory Company" has now been formed, to present plays both at the Playhouse and the Little Theatre under his management with Richard Leven as producer.
[31] Following the final curtain of the play "Let Nothing You Dismay", Mr Elliston announced that unless audiences increased significantly in the interim, the theatre would have to close before Christmas.
In his curtain speech, Mr Elliston referred to the closure as a personal sorrow and thanked both players and supporters for their loyalty and kindness.
Special note was made of the high standard of work from the scenic designer Michael Thomason, and Ruth Kettlewell as an excellent character actress.
[32] By arrangement with Mr Peter Elliston, the newly formed "Great Yarmouth Repertory" carries on at the Little Theatre, Aurora Productions holding the lease to the end of 1951.
Over the years, The Little Theatre could boast of a succession of professional stage managers; Robert Handley, Peter Drew, Julian Gaunt, George Knight and Desmond O'Callen among them.
An actor's life on the London stage was interrupted by the war, serving for six years with the RASC, which at its end saw the beginning of Aurora Productions.