A bit about the Andaman Players

The Andaman Players was launched in 2007, initially to perform the annual pantomime at the Green Man Theatre. Such was the level of interest and commitment from the ensemble of actors and backstage crew, planning for the nascent theatre group’s next production began well before the panto, Mother Goose, went on stage.

March 2008 saw the Players stage an evening of comedy theatre shorts and sketches at the Green Man, including the debut performance of Night in a Bar Room – an original one-act comedy by Simon J Hand about a battling husband and wife’s evening out at a quiet bar in Phuket.

The Andaman Players next took to the stage in June 2008 for two sold out performances at the new Playhouse Theatre in Patong, reprising Night in a Bar Room and adding another new play by Simon J Hand, Adjoined – about the madness that ensues when two couple’s are disturbed by unusual noises in their hotel rooms.

Following the success of the Playhouse performance, the Players took the show back to the Green Man in August for another sold out show.

Participation in the Phuket Fringe Festival, in late September 2008, saw the Players frantically preparing yet another original production for the Playhouse. With the audience literally standing in the aisles, the Players wowed with their production of Simon J Hand’s dark comedy, Time-Shared, about four rather dodgy characters and a sociopathic teen spending a night together locked in an unfinished condo unit.

The Players returned to the Green Man for a production of Jack and the Bean-Stalk that Christmas and an interactive murder mystery dinner theatre, Death and Deceit on the Nile, in August 2009.

A hardcore faction of the Players also produced a fifteen minute version of the Rocky Horror Show that Halloween, performed for a drunken mass of bleary-eyed and confused revellers at the Flamingo Splash Lounge, Kata. (“Oos dat bloke in da fishnet stockin’s den?”)

For Christmas 2009, the Players again took the stage at the Green Man with their production of Sinbad the Sea Gypsy, lauded as their best Panto yet.

Sinbad and The Sea Gypsy

In April 2010, while in the final stages of rehearsals for their next production, Love is a 4 Letter Word, the Players were stunned by the news that their founder, Tony Kelsey-Stead, had passed away in the UK while receiving treatment for Acute Adult Myeloid Leukaemia. It was a tragic loss. The Players had lost both a great friend and its happy, loving core performer.

After much soul-searching, the Players agreed that Tony would have insisted that the show must go on So, they took to the stage once more, at Mom Tri’s Kitchen in Kata, to perform a series of sketches and songs that explored the meaning of love, offering a final salute to Tony.

The Andaman Players remain dedicated to bringing quality theatre to Phuket and plans to stage more original, challenging and, most importantly, entertaining productions in the years to come.