Club History
This section of the site contains items on the history of the club, and its activities over the yearsBackground
How Dibble Tree Theatre was established Our original constitution urged us to 'own and run our own theatre'. Over the years many attempts were made to do this. One hopeful but ultimately hopeless effort was our lease of the then defunct Dominion Cinema. It looked good during that beautifully dry summer. When the Autumn rains came, so did the internal floods. There weren't enough buckets and basins in Carnoustie to keep our beautifully decorated and much loved clubrooms a viable prospect.
We lived for a while thereafter in the Masonic Hall which was home for our scenery and rehearsed many plays and two pantomimes. It also, turned out to be too great a financial burden for both ourselves and the Masons and so we were on the move again. Our scenery then spent many happy years in Bell's cowshed just outside the town. Chickens roosted on our flats and rostra and left many a deposit which gave an entirely new meaning to redecoration. Other homes for scenery were the Yacht Club store, a garage, a cottage and a portacabin. Costume languished in lofts, cottages, wardrobes, back rooms, garages and a laundry room. We rehearsed in living rooms, garages, school rooms and gardens and performed in every conceivable flat space in the town.
Through twenty turbulent years the Club presented 3 full length plays, 2 or 3 one-act plays and a pantomime or musical show every year. We slowly established a reputation for professional hard work and quality. Membership grew close to 100.
Our luck had to change and in 1991 it did. At a public meeting we finally launched our bid to own a useful property and a few months later we could hardly believe our luck when we were practically given a building in the centre of town with all the potential to make a first class 'little theatre'.
I say 'given', but we did have a little mortgage help from a friendly bank manager, a grant of £5000 from the Angus District Council, a grant of £8000 from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts not to mention a lot of very hard work from many and growing membership who raised a further £12,000.
Friends of the Club over many years pooled their efforts to transform the single brick structure, ex-garden centre, ex-joiners workshop into a viable small theatre. Nothing useable was wasted. No opportunity lost to encourage unsuspecting donors to give us theatre seating (Regal Cinema, Broughty Ferry) cupboards, glazing, doors and labour were all given willingly by an enthusiastic community.
How did the theatre get it's peculiar name? For this we have to understand a bit of Carnoustie folklore. In Napoleonic times Carnoustie was a much smaller coastal farming village and Thomas Lousen, a Sea Fencible (coastguard) and small time farmer was trying to plant out a relatively infertile plot of land close to the village. Thomas was using a willow 'dibble' (planting stick) and in the planting process grew tired, fell asleep and when he awoke forgot where he had left his dibble. Some months later he found it again but as is the wont of willow, it had rooted.
This became Carnoustie's Dibble Tree. David Lowson, Thomas's great, great grandson, now a man in his seventies, lives close to the site of the Dibble Tree which grows just on the edge of the theatre grounds. Over the years he tended the tree which has suffererd lightning strikes and other injuries and now shows it's great age.
The Executive Committee of the Club, in seeking to find a suitable name for the theatre wished to link it strongly to the town and so it wasn't difficult to choose 'Dibble Tree' Theatre, as the name. David Lowson and his wife performed the official opening of the theatre at a Grand Gala Fete 18 months after the start of work.
Dibble Tree Theatre has 48 seats, 2 dressing rooms, a box office, scenery store, disabled access, toilets, a well equipped sound and lighting control room and a beautiful stage. We just love it. Thank you to everyone who helped make our dreams come true.
And now for a post script .... The Club's plans to enhance Dibble Tree has taken a giant step forward with a Lottery grant of £63,000 notified to us in January 1998. The total cost of the works to produce additional rehearsal space, property store, enhanced customer and disabled facilities and updated technical equipment will round out at £84,000. The balance will be met from our own fund raising and an interest free loan from the Morton Trust. Watch this space for further details.
This page first uploaded on 15th April 1996.
C.T.C. - a potted history
About a dozen enthusiastic thespians became members, elected a committee who wrote an 'arts' constitution and chose the first play. Enthusiasm was all we had. No established rehearsal space, no money to finance the first project and no experience of working together as a team.
The first fund raising ventures, a coffee morning and a jumble sale raised £16 (British pounds) and £35 respectively. Rehearsals were arranged in a classroom of Kinloch School. A great effort went into costumes, set design, lighting, publicity, programmes and tickets. A new director, a new cast, a new everything. Thankfully the playwright had been dead a long time and was probably too decayed to turn in his grave for it was artistically and financially a disaster. Looking back, the programme stands the test of time. The lessons learned about marketing and shared responsibility for difficult tasks have not been forgotten.
One of our early mentors, John Clotworthy, encouraged us to join the Scottish Community Drama Association. The Association ran advisory classes and operated an annual One-Act Play Festival. We met many, much more experienced clubs and players and in entering these competitive festivals we were subject to careful adjudication and constructive criticism. Being of sound mind, we didn't like the criticism but learned the lessons never-the-less.
We rehearsed in living rooms, garages, school rooms and gardens and performed in every conceivable flat space in the town. Some of our venues have been The Philip (church) Hall, Carnoustie Public Library, the Beach Hall, a lawn or two and even the occasional proper theatre during festivals. Through twenty turbulent years the Club presented 3 full length plays, 2 or 3 one-act plays and a pantomime or musical show every year. We slowly established a reputation for professional hard work and quality.
Following our acquisition of Dibble Tree Theatre, all shows are rehearsed there and only the panto with a cast of 100 and an audience of 2200 is performed in the High School Theatre. The Club has strong links with Carnoustie Musical Society. There are some cross-over members and we have a considerable community of interest in shared use and ownership of technical items such as lighting, audio and stage equipment. These shared resources require careful monitoring but save each club in the region of £1500 every year.
Pantomime has been the making of the business side of the club. We typically budget to spend £4-5000 on the panto but can expect ticket and Front of House sales to make a surplus of £5000. This enables the Club to pay a mortgage of £250 per month to our bank and pay for water and electricity without fear of going bankrupt. The other fund saving move was to register as a charity. Although a troublesome proceedure it has cut the cost of local taxes by more than 85%. as part of our community effort we have also put on several shows whose suplus (profit) has gone towards other charities such as the Antony Nolan Trust Fund for the treatment of clildren's leukaemia.
This page first uploaded on 15th April 1996
Lets Do A Panto
‘Let’s do a Panto’ It all seemed so simple. The club had been going for almost 10 years and our children had been helping out front and backstage, with the occasional youth’s part available. In those days there was not access to the amount of youth theatre that there is now, so a panto seemed the obvious answer.
With lots of enthusiasm and absolutely no experience whatsoever we embarked on our first panto. ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Our families were despatched to round up a few friends each for the chorus (no experience and no auditions required!) We booked Carnoustie High School Theatre for the first week in December and we were off.
No money? No problem! ‘Let’s run monthly discos’. This was 1978 and disco fever was at it’s height. For the next six months we ran discos in the local hall with the help of parents and older club members.
The first night arrived. The 45 cast and chorus were nervous and excited. The curtains opened……there was an audience of 17. The theatre was capable of holding 350 so there was a lot of space. It was probably just as well because our inexperience really showed itself that night. We had not given much thought about how scenes were to be changed with the result our scene changes probably added about three quarters of an hour to the whole evening!
However by the end of the week we had slimmed down our timing and swelled our audience so we felt it had been a worthwhile venture. The Carnoustie Annual Panto was born.
During the following years we rehearsed in Church Halls, houses, attics, garages and the local Library. Our sets were built where we could get space. At one point we were given the use of a local cow shed. Our intrepid backstage team built and painted the scenery there using car headlamps for lighting We have come a long way since then and now have an extremely large and experienced team of on and offstage members. We play to a full audience in Carnoustie High Scool Theatre for a week long run .
But it is still the moments of sheer panic that come to mind easily. One year our ‘Squire’ was taken to hospital with one hour to go before the show. A chorus member was press ganged into taking his part and got round the difficulty by pasting his words in a very large cartoon covered scrap book tied round his neck and bringing this into play with hilarious results. The audience thought this was all part of the show and only realised that there was a problem when our ‘Squire’ had a speech during a stage blackout The audience loved it!
One year we had a ‘flu’ epidemic during Panto week. We had entered our panto ’Puss in Boots’ for the ‘Dore Jackson Trophy. Our ‘Puss’ came into the dressing room on the night of the adjudicator’s attendance and it was clear to see that the bug had got her. However ‘the show must go on’. She struggled her way through most of the night until her scene with the ‘baddie’. The world started to spin, his voice seemed to come from a great distance, but she struggled on. The baddie meanwhile is looking at her and thinking ‘she’s not going to make it…..she’s going to faint any minute…..should I go and help her?…….no, I’m the baddie…..I’ll wait until she hits the floor and then carry her off if I have to. They made it through to the end of the scene(just). Adjudicators comments… ‘The scene between these two characters did not quite come off’ One child in the back row of the chorus was sick over two people in front of him. Fortunately this was just at the end of the scene, and as the following scene was being played out in front of the curtains, the backstage team were frantically trying to change scenery while the rest of us were mopping up!
Sometimes things get so hectic that we ask ‘Is it worth it?’ With all the fun and joy for cast and audience alike the answer must be
‘Oh yes it is!’