The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Each year we visit around twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens – and travel through five or six countries. The tour schedule always incorporates a handful of new venues each year, whilst maintaining long-standing relationships with others (we have been visiting some for almost three decades). In the past, we have performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, The Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
An integral part of the tour is the educational enrichment we provide. The play is designed to engage with modern audiences, from school children to expatriates, and alongside this we offer both artistic and technical workshops at all venues we perform. Furthermore, a substantial educational pack is sent out to venues well in advance of our tour, and the cast enter lessons and lectures to discuss the play when we arrive. Equally, ETG is an important cultural experience for both the company and those at the venues we visit, who are always kind and hospitable, often providing us with grand banquet lunches and hosts to stay with overnight!
Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
