Basel Expats

The Semi Circle is a community theater that aims to provide high-quality English-language theater events to a wide audience through the development of skills and participation of members in all aspects of production.

The aim is to put on a full length play or musical in the spring and a collection of shorter or one-act plays in the autumn. Semi Circle has been performing plays in Basel since 1975, Recent full length shows include A Street car Named Desire (Williams), RENT (Larson), Shadow Box (Christofer), A Murder is Announced (Christie) and Calendar Girls (Firth). Recent Short plays have included Bouncers (Godber), Night (Pinter), Death of a Clown (Beard), Medea (Durang & Wasserstein) and The extraordinary Revelations of Orca the Goldfish (Tristram). For further information and membership details, please go to http://www.semi-circle.ch/ . Membership requests and contact are under the “Welcome” tab. Annual family membership is CHF75, Individual CHF50 and student CHF20.

The Basel English Panto Group http://www.baselpanto.org/ Every Christmas something magical happens in Basel, the annual Panto. This is a a family show based on a children’s story with dancing, singing and silly stock characters.  It is a British tradition with roots in pre-christian winter festivities but is now enjoyed by a wide range of expatriates and Swiss nationals, having become a much-loved fixture in the Basel seasonal calendar. The first English panto was performed in Basel in 1994; the BEPG was formed in 2009 and now performs to packed houses in early December each year.

The income from the panto supports the education of disadvantaged girls in Kenya at the renowned Starehe Girl’s Center and funds the next year’s show. In order to get an alert when tickets go on sale, sign up on the website as tickets, especially for the matinees, are soon sold out. Also, you may be interested in information about volunteering to help produce the show or auditioning for a part. it is not unusual for up to 100 people to be involved in some way each year.