Albert Belz
Bekah Brunstetter
Nick Gill
James Graham
Michael Lesslie
Anders Lustgarten
Colleen Muldoon-Taylor
Colleen Murphy
Geoff Thompson
Simon Vinnicombe
The Finborough Theatre presents a ten-day season of ten new works for the stage by ten UK and international playwrights, discovered, developed or championed by the Finborough Theatre.
Tuesday, 6 October – Saturday, 17 October 2009
Tuesday, 6 October 2009 – Death and the Kit-Kat (A Torture Comedy) by Anders Lustgarten.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009 – Wisdom by Simon Vinnicombe.
Thursday, 8 October 2009 – Mirror Teeth by Nick Gill.
Friday, 9 October 2009 – Three Sacks Full of Hats by Geoff Thompson.
Saturday, 10 October 2009 – Green by Bekah Brunstetter.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 – The December Man / L’homme de décembre by Colleen Murphy.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 – Awhi Tapu by Albert Belz.
Thursday, 15 October 2009 – Driven by Colleen Muldoon-Taylor.
Friday, 16 October 2009 – Face Up, Face Down by Michael Lesslie.
Saturday, 17 October 2009 – A New Play by James Graham.
Click here to download the Vibrant - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights brochure
“It says a great deal about the systems and structures of new writing in UK theatres that [Sarah] Grochala's nugget of a play has been lying around for two years unproduced. At its best it reminds us of Pinter and Bond.”
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian on the Finborough Theatre’s world premiere production of Sarah Grochala’s S27, June 2009.
The Finborough Theatre presents a ten day season of ten new works for the stage by ten UK and international playwrights, discovered, developed or championed by the Finborough Theatre, and curated by Artistic Director Neil McPherson and the Finborough Theatre Literary Department.
Despite remaining completely unfunded, the Finborough Theatre has an unparalleled track record of discovering new playwrights who go on to become leading voices in British theatre. Under Artistic Director Neil McPherson, it has discovered some of the UK’s most exciting new playwrights including Laura Wade, James Graham, Mike Bartlett, Sarah Grochala, Jack Thorne, Joy Wilkinson, Simon Vinnicombe, Alexandra Wood, Al Smith, Nicholas de Jongh and Anders Lustgarten. It is the only theatre without public funding to be awarded the prestigious Pearson Playwriting Award bursary (2000, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009) as well as twice winning Pearson’s Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play written by a bursary holder.
The Finborough Theatre Literary Department was founded in 2005 and was originally run by Alexandra Wood who went on to write The Eleventh Capital at the Royal Court Theatre which won her the 2007 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright. Working closely with the Artistic Director, the Literary Department is now run by a vibrant young team, headed by Literary Associate writer/director Titas Halder, and Senior Reader director Eleanor Rhode.
Our Vibrant! Festival of Finborough Playwrights has been designed to introduce you to some of the fascinating voices we have nurtured, and we are particularly delighted to present some of the first plays of brand new writers in their 30s, 40s and 50s who continue to be neglected by other new writing organisations. Join us for ten days of ten new works by ten diverse vibrant new voices.
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Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Death and the Kit-Kat (A Torture Comedy)
by Anders Lustgarten. Directed by Kate Wasserberg.
Cast includes: Zena Birch. Leander Deeny. William McGeough. John Moraitis. Jonathan Roberts. Catherine Skinner.
British civil servant Robin Butler is on his first overseas assignment. Armed only with paperwork, he is sent to an American military facility to monitor the ethical practice of questioning detainees. He soon finds himself drawn into a farcical system of bureaucracy, hypocrisy and torture. Faced with an unnervingly jolly interrogator and psychologically troubled American military personnel, Butler is forced to question the integrity of both ‘the British way’ and his own moral strength.
Anders Lustgarten is currently the Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre. His first two plays – The Insurgents (2007) and Enduring Freedom (2008) – both received their world premieres at the Finborough Theatre. He is also now on attachment at Soho Theatre and under commission from the Bolton Theatre, Octagon. Other work includes The Punishment Stories (shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award in 2007), A Day at the Racists, and an adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek’s The Police (BAC 2007).
Director Kate Wasserberg was both a Resident Assistant Director and an Associate Director of the Finborough Theatre, and is now Director of New Plays at Clwyd Theatr Cymru where she has directed James Graham’s A History of Falling Things and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Her Finborough Theatre productions include James Graham's Sons of York and Little Madam, and Rolf Hochhuth’s The Representative.
Zena Birch trained at Goldsmiths College and Central School of Speech and Drama. She is a member of the Performance Art and Theatre Collective, Station House Opera, in which she co-created and continues to perform in Mind Out at venues across the UK and Europe; Leander Deeny appeared in The Representative at the Finborough Theatre. He trained at LAMDA. Other theatre includes Victory (Arcola Theatre), Present: Tense (Nabokov/Trafalgar Studios), The Merchant of Venice and Holding Fire! (Shakespeare’s Globe). Film credits include Atonement; William McGeough appeared in The Representative and Little Madam at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre credits include Marat/Sade (Punchdrunk), The Treadmark On My Heart and Viable Alternatives (Theatre 503), Stars in the Morning Sky (Union Theatre), The Importance of Being Earnest (Colour House), Mistero Buffo (Thinktank, The Courtyard Hoxton); John Moraitis is currently appearing in A View From The Bridge (Duke of York’s Theatre). Other theatre includes Ramallah and Crocodile Seeking Refuge (Ice and Fire), Fragile! (Arcola Theatre). Film credits include Goodfellas, United 93, and A Bunch of Amateurs. Television credits include Law and Order, People Like Us and NY-LON. Radio credits include Empire of Liberty; Jonathan Roberts’s credits include Bloggers; Real Internet Diaries (Connected Theatre), An Evening of Flanders and Swann (MRM Productions), Hedda Gabler (Wheelhouse Theatre Company). Television includes The Bill, The Chase and Tony Blair Rock Star; Catherine Skinner appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Little Madam. Other theatre includes The Witches (Ambassadors Theatre Group), The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Forward, Transmissions and Under Carriage (Birmingham Rep). Television includes The Rotters Club, Housewife 49, The Scum Also Rises. Radio includes One Day and Daddy’s Girl.
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Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Wisdom
by Simon Vinnicombe. Directed by Ben Kidd.
Cast includes: Geraldine Alexander. Marion Bailey. Kieron Forsyth. Martin Herdman. Michael Irving. Fred Ridgeway. Jonathan Warde.
Peter is fast approaching his sixtieth birthday and has always been a loyal servant to his job and his family. But when his health starts to fail, he's forced to face the frustration and regret that he has kept buried for years. A beautiful and sensitive exploration of the lives of a group of fifty-somethings who must either accept their lot in life or find the courage to reach out into the unknown before it is too late.
Simon Vinnicombe is a Finborough Theatre Playwright-in-Residence. His first two plays – Year 10 (2005) and Cradle Me (2008) – both received their world premieres at the Finborough Theatre. Year 10 was named Time Out Critics’ Choice and subsequently transferred to the BAC and the Festival Premières second edition – a festival organised by the Théâtre National de Strasbourg and Le Maillon and as part of the Brittany International Theatre Festival in 2006. His other work has been produced at the Bush Theatre, Union Theatre, Southwark Playhouse, the Old Vic Theatre and on BBC Radio 4. Wisdom was part of a reading series at the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, last year and now receives its European premiere.
Director Ben Kidd was a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre during 2008 and made his debut with an acclaimed revival of Nick Ward’s Apart From George. He has also assisted Carrie Cracknell on I Am Falling (Gate Theatre), Edward Dick on Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe) and worked on the Young People’s Theatre scheme at BAC.
Geraldine Alexander’s credits include Pillars of the Community (National Theatre) State of Emergency (Gate Theatre), Fall (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), Titus Andronicus, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe), A Streetcar Named Desire (Mercury Theatre, Colchester). TV credits include Extras, EastEnders, Casualty, Silent Witness, Coronation Street and Midsomer Murders; Marion Bailey’s credits include Cloud Nine (Old Vic Theatre), This is a Chair, Blest be the Tie and Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court Theatre), Kindertransport, War and Peace and Mine (Shared Experience).Film credits include I’ll Be There and Vera Drake, and TV credits include Midsomer Murders, Persuasion and New Tricks; Kieron Forsyth appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Acid Hearts. Other theatre includes Dealer’s Choice (National Theatre Tour, Vaudeville Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse) House and Garden and Live Bed Show (Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton) and Peter Pan (National Theatre). Television includes Wycliffe, Peak Practice, EastEnders and The Bill; Martin Herdman’s credits include As You Like It and A Mad World, My Masters (Shakespeare’s Globe), Dear Brutus and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nottingham Playhouse). Film credits include Stormbreaker and Revolver, TV credits include Silent Witness, EastEnders, Doctors, Grass, The Catherine Tate Show, Above Suspicion; Michael Irving appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Apart From George. Other theatre includes Uncle Vanya and Old Times (Northcott Theatre, Exeter), Passion in Six Days (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield), Jane Eyre (York Theatre Royal). He co-founded and ran the Half Moon Theatre. Television includes Coronation Street, EastEnders and The Bill; Fred Ridgeway’s theatre credits include England People Very Nice (National Theatre), Coriolanus, Speaking Like Magpies, A New Way to Please You and Thomas More (Royal Shakespeare Company), Henry V and Port (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Weir and Spinning Into Butter (Royal Court Theatre), In Extremis and Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare’s Globe), and The Glassroom and My Boy Jack (Hampstead Theatre). Television includes Heartbeat, Doctors, EastEnders, Spooks and Midsomer Murders; Jonathan Warde appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Red Night. Other theatre includes Navy Pier (New Theatre Workshop), Salt Meets Wound (Theatre 503), A Alchemy of Flesh (Secret Life Theatre), The Rover (Looking Glass House), Ma Kelly’s Doorstep (Attic Theatre Company). His TV credits include Heartbeat, Silent Witness, Wire in the Blood.
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Thursday, 8 October 2009
Mirror Teeth
by Nick Gill. Directed by Kate Wasserberg.
Cast includes: Babatunde Aleshe. Lorna Beckett. Leander Deeny. Jonathan Roberts. Catherine Skinner.
James and Jane are married, middle-aged and middle-class. They live in one of the larger cities in our country. She is a housewife, he sells guns and they are both afraid of ethnic youths who wear hoods and carry knives. All is well in the Jones household, until their sexually frustrated eighteen year old daughter Jane brings home her new boyfriend, Kwese Abalo… A hilarious, surreal, and disturbing examination of the truths behind political correctness and middle-class morality.
Nick Gill won the inaugural Lost Theatre 5 Minute Festival and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation Award for his play Broken Earth And Dead Blue Sky (2008). His other works include Heaven (shortlisted for the Royal Court Young Writers’ Festival 2007), Funeralesque, Something I Wrote in A Hurry, Fiji Land (shortlisted for the Amnesty International ‘Protect the Human’ Award), This is Never Going To Work and Spiderhead.
Babatunde Aleshe trained at Central School of Speech and Drama. His theatre credits include He Left Quietly (Pit Theatre, Barbican), Holes (Wimbledon Studio Theatre) and Iyá Ilé (Soho Theatre Company). Film credits include Pelican Blood and Portrait of a Player. Television includes Law and Order and New Tricks. Radio includes Listen Against; Lorna Beckett trained at LAMDA. Theatre includes Time and the Conways (National Theatre), Duet for One (Almeida Theatre), A Stab in the Dark, Avocado, Stephen and the Sexy Partridge (Osip); Leander Deeny appeared in The Representative at the Finborough Theatre. He trained at LAMDA. Other theatre includes Victory (Arcola Theatre), Present: Tense (Nabokov/Trafalgar Studios), The Merchant of Venice and Holding Fire! (Shakespeare’s Globe). Film credits include Atonement; Jonathan Roberts’s credits include Bloggers; Real Internet Diaries (Connected Theatre), An Evening of Flanders and Swann (MRM Productions), Hedda Gabler (Wheelhouse Theatre Company). Television includes The Bill, The Chase and Tony Blair Rock Star; Catherine Skinner appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Little Madam. Other theatre includes The Witches (Ambassadors Theatre Group), The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Forward, Transmissions and Under Carriage (Birmingham Rep). Television includes The Rotters Club, Housewife 49, The Scum Also Rises. Radio includes One Day and Daddy’s Girl.
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Friday, 9 October 2009
Three Sacks Full of Hats
by Geoff Thompson. Directed by Nick Bagnall.
Cast includes: Louise Bush. Craig Conway. Ronnie Fox. Fred Ridgeway. Maggie Steed.
Eddie is an alcoholic. But the rest of the family won’t admit that he has a problem. After all, they’ve worked all their lives for a drink. Eddie’s brother Mick left his family behind years ago, but when he returns, a decade’s worth of bitterness and hurt shatter the careful silence as Mick forces his family to confront the addictions lying at the very heart of their home – whilst he faces up to the shame he feels for the people he loves the most. A dark, hard-hitting, assault on the senses by a remarkable new playwright.
Geoff Thompson was born in Coventry in 1960 and worked as a night club bouncer for nearly a decade. His first book Watch My Back was on The Sunday Times Bestsellers List in both hardback and paperback. From 1997-2000, Geoff was a columnist and Contributing Editor at Men’s Fitness magazine, published several articles in titles such as GQ, FHM and The Times, and was also voted the number one self defence author in the world by Black Belt Magazine USA. Geoff’s first short film, Bouncer, starring Ray Winstone and Paddy Considine, was screened at over thirty international festivals. His second short film Brown Paper Bag won a BAFTA in 2004. His first play was a monologue, Doorman, which was produced at the Drum Theatre Plymouth in 2003 and subsequently on national tour. Three Sacks… is Geoff’s first full stage play.
Director Nick Bagnall most recently directed Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Trafalgar Studios). Other theatre includes Burning Cars (Hampstead Theatre), The Electric Hills (Liverpool Everyman) and Mongoose (The Assembly Rooms Edinburgh). Nick has created and led acting and directing workshops for the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse. He is founding director of Sweetheart Productions.
Louise Bush appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Captain Oates’ Left Sock. Other theatre includes Ridiculusmus (Royal Court Theatre), London Calling (Theatre of Discontent), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III (Shakespeare’s Globe), Demons and Dybbuks (Young Vic). TV credits include Casualty, The Bill and Meet Pursuit Delange. Craig Conway’s credits include Romeo and Juliet and Peer Gynt (National Theatre), Macbeth and East (Leicester Haymarket), 1984, A Clockwork Orange and Animal Farm (Northern Stage). TV credits include Our Friends in the North, Hollyoaks and The Hogfather. Film credits include Dog Soldiers, Vera Drake, multi-award-winning The Descent and Doomsday. Ronnie Fox’s film credits include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Pink, Clubbed and Brown Paper Bag. TV credits include Prime Suspect, Casualty and All in the Game; Fred Ridgeway’s theatre credits include England People Very Nice (National Theatre), Coriolanus, Speaking Like Magpies, A New Way to Please You and Thomas More (Royal Shakespeare Company), Henry V and Port (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Weir and Spinning Into Butter (Royal Court Theatre), In Extremis and Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare’s Globe), and The Glassroom and My Boy Jack (Hampstead Theatre). Television includes Heartbeat, Doctors, EastEnders, Spooks and Midsomer Murders; Maggie Steed’s theatre credits include The History Boys and The Heiress (National Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet (Royal Shakespeare Company), Mrs Warren’s Profession (Lyric Theatre), and The Cocktail Party and Mother Courage and Her Children (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh). Film credits include The Painted Veil and Kings in Grass Castles. Television credits include Inspector Morse, French and Saunders, Born and Bred, Martin Chuzzlewit, Foyles War, Sensitive Skin, New Tricks and Jam and Jerusalem.
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Saturday, 10 October 2009
Green
by Bekah Brunstetter. Directed by Blanche McIntyre.
Cast includes: Fenar Mohammed Ali. Todd Boyce. Kelly Burke. Drew Caiden. Edmund Kingsley. Sean McConaghy. Elena Pavli. Simon Quarterman.
Green is a darkly comic and sometimes surreal look at the mind of an American soldier in the Iraq war. Clint left his life as a young university acting student to sign up to go to war in Iraq, and returns home to find a country he doesn’t recognise. The play questions the American political response to the current war, what motivates young people to join the military, and what happens to soldiers as a result of the extreme conditions of modern warfare.
Bekah Brunstetter is a New York based playwright who received her UK debut at the Finborough Theatre earlier this year with Oohrah! which is also currently being produced at the Atlantic Theater Company, New York City. She also co-wrote Avocado, recently seen at the King's Head Theatre. Bekah won the Samuel French New York Short Play Festival in 2008 with her play F*cking Art and in 2006 with Sick. She is currently Playwright-in-Residence at Ars Nova in New York City. Green was a finalist in the Alliance Theater's Kendeda Competition, a national finalist in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and a semi-finalist at the O'Neill Theatre Conference 2007.
Director Blanche McIntyre is the first recipient of the Leverhulme Directors’ Bursary, and is currently Director in Residence at the National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre. Directing includes Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita (Greenwich Playhouse), Three Hours After Marriage (Union Theatre), Wuthering Heights (National Tour), The Revenger’s Tragedy (BAC), Birds (Southwark Playhouse), Doctor Faustus, The Devil Is An Ass, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde As Told To An Inmate Of Broadmoor Asylum (White Bear Theatre), and Lost Hearts, The Invention of Love and Cressida (Edinburgh Festival). She will direct Bulgakov’s Moliere or The League of Hypocrites at the Finborough Theatre in December 2009.
Fenar Mohammed Ali’s theatre credits include Stovepipe (National Theatre, Bush Theatre and High Tide) and The Mothers and Camel Station (Midlands Actors Theatre). Television credits include Occupation and Strike Back; Todd Boyce’s theatre credits include Dr Faustus and Burn This (Sydney Theatre Company), Hamlet (Young Vic), The Women of Lockerbie (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Midnight Cowboy (The Assembly Rooms Edinburgh) and The Exonerated (Riverside Studios). Film credits include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Adventure Inc., The Gatekeeper, and Penelope. Television includes Spooks, Space Race, Coronation Street and Discovery; Kelly Burke’s credits include Avocado (King’s Head Theatre), Inherit the Wind (Modern Muse Theatre Company), Zelda (Yellow Heron Productions) and a rehearsed reading of Marie and Bruce (Royal Court Theatre); Drew Caiden’s theatre credits include Wig Out! (Royal Court Theatre), An Enemy of the People (National Theatre, US tour) and Macbeth, The Merry Wives of Windsor and The White Devil (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). His television credits include Material Girl; Edmund Kingsley’s theatre credits include The Tempest, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra (Royal Shakespeare Company), Human Rites (Southwark Playhouse), Rope (Watermill Theatre, Newbury), The Importance of Being Ernest (Salisbury Playhouse) and Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Rep). Film includes Within the Woods, Swan Song, Sherlock Holmes and the Living Dead and Glasses of Wine. Television credits include As If, Agatha Christie- A Life in Pictures and Sensitive Skin; Sean McConaghy’s theatre credits include Troilus and Cressida (Royal Shakespeare Company), Much Ado About Nothing and Richard III (Trinity Repertory Company) and An Enemy of the People and Julius Caesar (Gamm Theatre). Film credits include The Task; Elena Pavli trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her theatre credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sydney Opera House), Hamlet (The Factory), The Seagull (Hampstead Theatre) and The Battle of Green Lanes (Theatre Royal Stratford East). Her television credits include Planespotting, Stop/Start and Major Crime. Simon Quarterman appeared in Seduced at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre includes Hayfever (Oxford Stage Company), The Wizard of Oz and Johnson Over Jordan (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Master Harold and the Boys (Salisbury Playhouse) and Gaugleprixtown (Latchmere Theatre). Television includes Whistleblowers, EastEnders, Holby City, Making Waves, Swallow, Murder Rooms, Victoria and Albert, Lorna Doone, Midsomer Murders and The Sleeper.
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Tuesday, 13 October 2009
The December Man / L’homme de décembre
by Colleen Murphy. Directed by Eleanor Rhode.
Cast includes: Richard Beanland. Janie Booth. Paul Greenwood.
On 6 December 1989, a young man entered a college classroom in Montreal, Canada, carrying a gun. He ordered the men out of the room, then killed the women left behind. Jean, a promising young student, survives the attack, but is crippled by guilt. As he spirals into depression, his parents struggle to release their son from his grief and help him rebuild his life in the wake of the massacre. The December Man is an examination of life in the shadow of tragedy from one of Canada’s most exciting writers.
Colleen Murphy was born in Quebec and grew up in Northern Ontario. The December Man (L’homme de décembre), won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the CAA/Carol Bolt Award for Drama and the 2006 Enbridge playRites Award. Her other plays include Beating Heart Cadaver (nominated for a 1999 Governor General’s Literary Award), The Piper, Down in Adoration Falling and All Other Destinations are Cancelled. She has twice won awards in the CBC Literary Competition. Colleen’s distinct, award-winning films have played in festivals around the world and include Out in the Cold (2008), Girl with Dog (2005), War Holes (2003), Desire (2000), Shoemaker (1996), The Feeler (1995) and Putty Worm (1993).
Director Eleanor Rhode is a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre and is now Senior Reader. She recently directed the UK debut of award-winning Canadian playwright Michael Healey’s Generous at the Finborough Theatre. She has directed The Error of Their Ways (Cockpit Theatre), A Number (Camden People’s Theatre), This Lime Tree Bower (Edinburgh Festival) and Photos of You Sleeping (Hampstead Theatre).
Richard Beanland appeared in Generous at the Finborough Theatre. He trained at LAMDA. Credits whilst training include Angels in America, The Seagull, The Recruiting Officer, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Lady’s Tragedy, Pentecost, The Waiting Room and the world premiere of Doug Lucie’s Still. Other theatre credits include Bought and Sold (Bolton Octagon), Eyes (New End Theatre, Hampstead), Photos of You Sleeping (Hampstead Theatre) and Hydriotaphia (Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House); Janie Booth appeared in Captain Oates’ Left Sock at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre credits include Glorious! (Birmingham Rep, Duchess Theatre and UK tour), Nude With Violin (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Sisterly Feelings (Theatre Royal Windsor), In Your Hands (New End Theatre, Hampstead) and Bed Before Yesterday (The Mill at Sonning). Television credits include Torchwood, Doctors, As Time Goes By, Holby City, The Bill and Lovejoy; Paul Greenwood appeared in Twelfth Night, Inadmissible Evidence and The Beautiful People at the Finborough Theatre. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Theatre credits include The Comedy of Errors, King Lear, The Wizard of Oz, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, Henry VIII, Richard II, and Back to Methuselah (Royal Shakespeare Company), Tartuffe (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Beast On The Moon (Nottingham Playhouse) and He’s Much to Blame (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds). Television includes Rosie, Captain Zep, Heartland, Coronation Street, Lulu Show, No Trams to Lime Street, A Day Out, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Spender, Heartbeat, Rory Bremner...Who Else?, The Bill, Pie in the Sky, Jack of Hearts, Casualty, Holby City and Midsomer Murders. Radio includes The Man in the Paper Mask, Dear Nobody and John Dodd is Taken for a Ride. He is a founder member of the Drama Pool.
Canadian Drama at the Finborough Theatre – The Finborough Theatre is committed to presenting the work of Canadian playwrights in the UK. Plays by Canadian playwrights presented at the Finborough Theatre in recent years include the UK premieres of Grace by Michael Lewis MacLennan, Clever As Paint by Kim Morrissey, Inexpressible Island by David Young (subsequently seen in the West End under the title Antarctica), Wolfboy by Brad Fraser, Possible Worlds by John Mighton, Eyes Catch Fire by Jason Hall, Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, and two plays by Daniel MacIvor – House and See Bob Run. The Finborough Theatre has also seen the UK debuts of some of Canada’s most acclaimed new playwrights with productions of The Monument by Colleen Wagner, Full Frontal Diva by Donn Short, Zadie’s Shoes by Adam Pettle, Patience by Jason Sherman and Generous by Michael Healey.
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Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Awhi Tapu
by Albert Belz. Directed by Michael Longhurst.
Cast includes: Luke Brady. Elyes Gabel. Sartaj Garewal. Elena Pavli.
The UK debut of one of New Zealand’s most exciting Maori playwrights. Set in a tiny forestry town in New Zealand, three Maori blokes tell each other stories of their own lives, and that of the mute young girl. The guys dare to dream that their story should reach the rest of the world, and imagine telling it as a blockbuster Hollywood picture. As they tell their tales, they play the roles of the rest of the community and bring to life some of the more dangerous inhabitants of the town. Out of the humour comes a dark tale of abuse and tragedy which leads to a fiery conclusion.
Albert Belz was born in 1973. His first play Te Maunga was performed in 2001 to much critical acclaim. Awhi Tapu followed in 2003, produced by New Zealand's leading Maori theatre company, Taki Rua Productions on a national tour of New Zealand and was also nominated for Best New New Zealand Play at New Zealand's premiere theatre awards, the Chapman Tripp Awards. His other plays include Yours Truly which won many awards including the Best New New Zealand Play Award at the 2006 Chapman Tripp Awards, the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award 2006, and an award as New Zealand's Best Emerging Playwright, Te Karakia, presented at the Wellington International Festival of the Arts in 2008, and Whero's New Net, an adaptation of stories from Witi Ihimaera's New Net Goes Fishing.
Director Michael Longhurst has directed The Contingency Plan: On The Beach (Bush Theatre), Stovepipe (HighTide in collaboration with the National Theatre and Bush Theatre), Dirty Butterfly (Young Vic), 1 in 5 (Daring Pairings, Hampstead Theatre) The Death of Cool (Tristan Bates Theatre) New Voices: 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic), Gaudeamus (Arcola Theatre), Guardians (Pleasance Edinburgh and Theatre 503), Cargo (Pleasance Edinburgh and Oval House ), Doctor Faustus (Lakeside Arts Centre). Assistant Directing includes the forthcoming Arabian Nights (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Family Plays (Royal Court Theatre), Gaslight (Old Vic), A Respectable Wedding (Young Vic). Michael received the 2007 Jerwood Directors Award for Dirty Butterfly at the Young Vic. His 2005 Fringe First-winning production of Guardians was recently included as part of the This is War exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery. This summer he was attached to the Royal Court as a director in the International Residency.
Luke Brady’s credits include Nightfall (Edinburgh Festival), Tarantula in Petrol Blue (Aldeburgh Concert Hall), and The Tempest and We Will Rock You (Hurtwood House); Elyes Gabel’s theatre credits include Prince of Delhi Palace (National Theatre), Shades and Borderline (Royal Court Theatre), Headstones (Arcola Theatre), Fragile Land (Hampstead Theatre) and Mr. Elliott (Chelsea Theatre). Film credits include Boogeyman and Kingdom of Dust. Television includes Identity, Waterloo Road 4, Dead Set, Apparitions, Casualty and Doctors; Sartaj Garewal’s theatre credits include Free Outgoing and Kabbadi Kabbadi (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), Too Close to Home (Lyric Theatre), The Hot Zone (BAC), Tinderbox (Bush Theatre), London Continental, Villette and The Taming of the Shrew (Arcola Theatre), and Romeo and Juliet (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester). Film credits include The Infidel, Baseline, Crisis in the Credit System, Dirty War and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Television includes L8r, Casualty, Keen Eddie, Doctors, The Bill and EastEnders. Radio includes Silver Street, Operation Blue Star 25 Years, Clare in the Community, The Archers, The Verb and Ashes to Ashes; Elena Pavli trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Her theatre credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sydney Opera House), Hamlet (The Factory), The Seagull (Hampstead Theatre) and The Battle of Green Lanes (Theatre Royal Stratford East). Her television credits include Planespotting, Stop/Start and Major Crime.
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Thursday, 15 October 2009
Driven
by Colleen Muldoon-Taylor. Directed by Daljinder Singh.
Cast includes: Emma Beattie. Tim Chipping. James Hirst. Claire Little. William McGeough. Dawn Murphy. Catherine Skinner.
Based on real events. On 1 February 1995, an animal rights protester was crushed to death by a lorry exporting calves from Coventry Airport. No-one was blamed or convicted, but a ten-year ban on exporting live animals was imposed shortly afterwards. The lifting of the ban by the EU was met with fresh protest and renewed press interest. Journalist Katrina Wyer broke the runaway story first time around, but ten years on she faces opposition from within her own camp. As office politics and the glass ceiling threaten to overshadow the very human tragedy at the heart of the story, principles fall by the wayside, and Katrina is forced to choose between her conscience and her reputation.
Colleen Muldoon-Taylor was born in Coventry in 1969. Her work includes Cut Out (Radio 4).
Director Daljinder Singh has previously directed Fewer Emergencies (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), The Trial and Heer Ranjha (The Tramway), The Severed Head of Comrade Bukhari (The Arches and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), The Penal Colony (Tara Arts), and The Indian Wants the Bronx (Young Vic). Daljinder was the recipient of The Arches Award for Stage Directors in 2008 and the Jerwood Award for Directors in 2009.
Emma Beattie appeared in a rehearsed reading of Sons of York at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre credits include Ivanov (Donmar Warehouse at The Wyndham’s Theatre), John Gabriel Borkman and The Cut (Donmar Warehouse), a rehearsed reading of Danton’s Death (National Theatre Studio) and King Lear (Pendley Shakespeare Festival). Film includes Strictly Sinatra. Television includes Newsnight; Tim Chipping’s theatre credits include The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night and The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Tamburlaine The Great (Bristol Old Vic and Barbican Theatre), The Man Who Stole a Winter Coat (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Woyzeck (Gate Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Liverpool Everyman), Cavalcade (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow) and Lear (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield). Film credits include Troy, Shoot On Sight, Jack Brown and the Curse of the Crown, Captain Jack and Tales of the Fourth Dimension. Television credits include Ten Days to War, The Bill, Holby City, Casualty, Columbus, American Embassy, Menace, Jonathan Creek and Iphigenia at Aulis; James Hirst’s theatre credits include The Way Of The World and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (National Theatre), Macbeth and The Butterfly Club (Southwark Playhouse), The Bald Prima Donna (King’s Head Theatre), Real Life Sex Makes Baby (Royal Festival Hall), Romeo and Juliet (Hull Truck Theatre Company), The Witches (Birmingham Rep) and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Harrogate Theatre); Claire Little’s theatre credits include The Big Lie (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Wonderful World of Dissocia (National Theatre of Scotland, Royal Court Theatre, Tron Theatre, Glasgow and Plymouth Theatre Royal), Hothouse (Teatro Vivo), Six Degrees of Separation (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Shakespeare in Art (Dulwich Picture Gallery), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Natural Perspectives and Stafford Castle), and Live From Paradise (Station House Opera); William McGeough appeared in The Representative and Little Madam at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre credits include Marat/Sade (Punchdrunk), The Treadmark On My Heart and Viable Alternatives (Theatre 503), Stars in the Morning Sky (Union Theatre), The Importance of Being Earnest (Colour House), Mistero Buffo (Thinktank, The Courtyard Hoxton). Radio includes A Family Affair; Dawn Murphy appeared at the Finborough Theatre in a workshop of Milk Snatcher. She trained at Drama Centre London. Other theatre credits include Hunger (Soho Theatre), Drywrite (Hampstead Theatre), The Diary of Anne Frank (Broadway Studio Theatre, Catford), Positivity Street (Play 42) and Little Fish (Jam Jar Productions). Film credits include Matchpoint, Measure For Measure, Out Of Love and We Need to Talk About Kieran. Television includes Risk and The Play’s The Thing; Catherine Skinner appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Little Madam. Other theatre includes The Witches (Ambassadors Theatre Group), The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Forward, Transmissions and Under Carriage (Birmingham Rep). Television includes The Rotters Club, Housewife 49, The Scum Also Rises. Radio includes One Day and Daddy’s Girl.
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Friday, 16 October 2009
Face Up, Face Down
by Michael Lesslie. Directed by Titas Halder.
Cast includes: David Hinton. Richard James-Neale. Ben Stott. Steven Webb.
Britain is at war and 16-year-old Mark dreams of following his older brother into battle against the wishes of his Dad. But before he can join the army, Mark wages a private war at school against an arrogant gang rival, Hammed. He rescues a naive friend from Hammed’s mistreatment, but uses his new recruit to exact a mission of revenge. In the dead of night in his father’s garage, Mark’s vengeance turns into a recreation of an Iraqi-style hostage video. The only question is – who will be the victim?
Michael Lesslie was born in 1983. In 2003, Face Up,Face Down was awarded the Cameron Mackintosh Award for New Writing and his short film Heavy Metal Drummer, which he co-wrote, was nominated for a BAFTA and awarded a Smirnoff Reel Talent Award. In 2007, Michael completed another short film, Airlock, or How to Say Goodbye in Space starring Michael Sheen and Derek Jacobi which premiered at the 2007 Edinburgh Film Festival and was nominated for a Shine Award at the 2008 Bradford International Film Festival. He has subsequently written many screenplays for cinema. Onstage, his adaptation of the cult hit film Swimming with Sharks was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre in 2008 starring Christian Slater, Helen Baxendale and Matt Smith, and Trammel was part of the National Theatre’s 2009 New Connections season.
Director Titas Halder is Literary Associate at the Finborough Theatre, following a spell as a Resident Assistant Director, where he has directed Painting A Wall and assisted on Sons of York and Follow. Other Theatre includes One For The Road (Tabard Theatre) and a rehearsed reading of Speak to Me (Hampstead Theatre). Other Assisting includes Suddenlossofdignity.com (Bush Theatre), Stovepipe (Hightide, Bush Theatre and National Theatre) and The Constant Prince (Oxford Playhouse). As a writer, he trained with the Royal Court Theatre’s Critical Mass programme for black and ethnic playwrights. Writing includes Feeding Me (Paines Plough Later) and Fresh Prince (Oval House 33% London).
David Hinton appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Captain Oates' Left Sock. Other theatre includes The Arsonists and Rhinoceros (Royal Court Theatre), In Extremis and Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare’s Globe), Believe What You Will, A New Way to Please and Thomas More (Royal Shakespeare Company) and In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (Hampstead Theatre). Television includes Canoe Man, The Bill, Secret Life, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Casualty, Bombshell, Doctors and Out of Sight. Film includes National Treasure Book of Secrets and Upside of Anger; Richard James-Neale trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Theatre includes Cyrano de Bergerac (Royal Shakespeare Company Othello (Frantic Assembly), Pygmalion (Old Vic), Whispering Happiness (Box of Tricks Theatre Company), The Tempest (Box Clever Theatre Company), and Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Ludlow Festival); Ben Stott trained at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Theatre includes Macbeth (Liverpool Shakespeare Festival) and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Birmingham Rep). Television includes Margot, Doctors, Waterloo Road and Florence Nightingale; Steven Webb appeared in Sons of York at the Finborough Theatre. Other theatre includes Sh*t-Mix (Trafalgar Studios), The Long Road (Soho Theatre), Chatroom/Citizen and The History Boys (Royal National Theatre), and On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange Theatre and Royal National Theatre). Television includes Doctors, After Sun, My Harvey Lights a Candle, Loving You, The Bill, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Bad Girls, Peak Practice, The Rainbow Room and Anything's Possible. Film includes House of Boys, To Kill a King and Thou Shalt Not Kill. Radio includes Ah! Wilderness, Just Prose and Peter Pan in Scarlet.
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Saturday, 17 October 2009
The Man
by James Graham. Directed by Kate Wasserberg.
Cast includes: Leander Deeny. James Graham. Catherine Skinner.
Slightly neurotic and somewhat hapless Chris has had ‘a bit of year’, and now to cap it all off he must face his dreaded tax return. But it’s taken him longer than expected, with every receipt drawn out at random evoking the good times and the bad, memories of the things that have gone wrong, the relationships that have ended, and the people he’s lost. Chris must come to terms with his annus horribilis, the only support coming from the Inland Revenue on the other end of the line. The Man is a blackly comic interactive piece of unique storytelling, performed by the author himself.
James Graham is a Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre. In 2003, James sent an unsolicited script to the Finborough Theatre and since then we have presented his Pearson Award-winning Albert’s Boy (2005), Eden’s Empire (2006), winner of the Pearson Award’s Catherine Johnson Best Play Award 2007; Little Madam (2007) on the life of Margaret Thatcher, and Sons of York (2008), named Time Out Critics’ Choice. He was also the Finborough Theatre’s nominee for the BBC’s and Royal Court’s ‘The 50’ programme (of the 50 most exciting new writers in the UK) in 2006. Since being discovered by the Finborough Theatre, he has gone on to write for the Soho Theatre (Tory Boyz), the Bush Theatre (suddenlossofdignity.com and the forthcoming The Whisky Taster), Clywd Theatr Cymru (A History of Falling Things), BBC Radio 4, and ITV1 (Caught in a Trap starring Connie Fisher).
Leander Deeny appeared in The Representative at the Finborough Theatre. He trained at LAMDA. Other theatre includes Victory (Arcola Theatre), Present: Tense (Nabokov/Trafalgar Studios), The Merchant of Venice and Holding Fire! (Shakespeare’s Globe). Film credits include Atonement; Catherine Skinner appeared at the Finborough Theatre in Little Madam. Other theatre includes The Witches (Ambassadors Theatre Group), The Crucible (Royal Shakespeare Company), Forward, Transmissions and Under Carriage (Birmingham Rep). Television includes The Rotters Club, Housewife 49, The Scum Also Rises. Radio includes One Day and Daddy’s Girl.
Image: Jennifer Phoon
