They have a huge variety of events. Something for everyone. From community workshops at the Library, children’s shows at Cygnet Theatre, stand-up comedy at Topsham Brewery, folk music at the Corn Exchange, professional development workshops, storytelling at the RAMM, music at St Nicholas Priory, youth shows at the Hall and Multi-Story Orchestra in IKEA‘s car park.

Bringing art to unexpected places and helping everyone find their creative spark. Welcome to Cygnet’s Dream Festival.

Cygnet Theatre is a drama school and working theatre set up, in 1982, by Monica Shallis (1939-2006); playwright, artist and composer & Mary G. Evans (1934-). It evolved out of a young performers group that was informally connected with the Northcott Theatre through the support of the then Artistic Director Richard Digby Day, and Mary and Monica’s own work with the theatre.

When Monica was teaching (after a successful stage career), she became increasingly aware of the lack of opportunity for young people interested in pursuing acting.  Boys were encouraged to be plumbers or electricians and acting was not an option if you came from a working-class background.

Two of her first students Steve Bennett and Mark Currey went on to train at RADA and Central respectively. John Gregor, an Exeter boy, decided to train at Cygnet before going on to have a successful 30-year acting career.

In the late 1970s, Monica was teaching students Shakespeare and they were going on to get big parts in London shows.  On one occasion, Monica went up to London to see one of her former students Chris May in A Summer Nights Dream at St Baron’s Court in London (LAMDA – one of the old theatre schools).  What she realised then was that ‘his voice was the same as when he had left Exeter’ and she realised she could do the training that was being offered in London, herself, here in Exeter.

When meeting Mary at the 1975 Exeter Festival (the first festival in Exeter organised by Mary & then artistic director of the Northcott Geoffrey Reeves), they decided to create a theatre school, training the next generation of performers, here in Exeter. In 1982 Monica & Mary created Cygnet Theatre with a production of Hamlet, which went to Newton Abbot Community Centre, the Northcott Theatre & the Theatre Royal Plymouth. The Dream Festival celebrates 40 years of Cygnet Training Theatre, bringing artists, communities and businesses together to create a festival ‘for the people, by the people’.