Who are the SSA?
The Southsea Shakespeare Actors were formed in 1947 and since then have produced nearly two hundred plays, of which about two-thirds have been Shakespeare. Starting at St Peter's Hall in Southsea under the patronage of Sir Donald Wolfit and the directorship of the founder K. Edmonds Gateley MBE, the company flourished.
By the mid-1950's the Southsea Shakespeare Actors had moved into the opulent South Parade Pier Theatre. In this venue the SSA completed the Canon in the 1960s, becoming the first non-professional company in the world to have performed all of Shakespeare's plays - a fact recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. After the demise of the South Parade Pier the company removed to the King's Theatre where they performed throughout the 1970s & early 1980s.
Since the mid-80s the company has performed in a multitude of venues including the Library Theatre, the Hornpipe, The Ashcroft Centre and the Edinburgh Festival, but mostly at the Portsmouth Arts Centre. The Golden Jubilee Year of 1997 saw the company complete the canon for the second time, with All's Well That End's Well, performed at the New Theatre Royal. This venue, along with the Third Floor Arts Centre, has been the regular home of the SSA ever since, and the past decade has seen the company use these two venues to perform to audiences from across the South.
The new century has seen the birth and growth of Upstage!, the SSA's youth company, dedicated to schooling young people in theatre skills enabling them to present their own performances and to be fully involved in main company productions. The close of 2006 saw two recent SSA productions recognised for their excellence in the Portsmouth News Guide Awards - Our Country's Good received a nomination for best amateur production, whilst Macbeth received the runner-up prize in the same category and Rob Bartlett won the best actor in an amateur production prize for his lead role in the same play.
In 2007 we hit another milestone as we entered our 6th decade and celebrated by presenting excerpts from all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in four nights over two weeks and in 2009 we took Uncle Vanya to the Havant Arts Centre, the first time we have ever performed there, but most certainly not the last.
It is this dedication and love of the theatre that has seen the company establish itself as one of the premier amateur companies in the region over the past sixty years. Now firmly ensconced in a permanent base near the city centre, the SSA will continue to offer challenging and quality theatre to the people of Portsmouth for many years to come.
www.southseashakespeareactors.com