Vibrant 2012

by Craig Adams. Bekah Brunstetter. Pamela Carter. Chris Dunkley. Dawn King. Anders Lustgarten. Colleen Murphy. Matt Roberts. Nona Shepphard. Chris Thompson. Simon Vinnicombe. Joy Wilkinson. Alexandra Wood.

4 - 22 November 2012

Twelve new plays, twelve Finborough playwrights...

Craig Adams
Bekah Brunstetter
Pamela Carter
Chris Dunkley
Dawn King
Anders Lustgarten
Colleen Murphy
Matt Roberts
Nona Shepphard
Chris Thompson
Simon Vinnicombe
Joy Wilkinson
Alexandra Wood 

Directed by Justin Audibert. Sarah Bedi. Robert Hastie. Louise Hill. Stephen Keyworth. Alex Marker. Blanche McIntyre. David Mercatali. Donnacadh O’Briain. Max Pappenheim. Amelia Sears. Nona Shepphard.

The multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre presents Vibrant 2012 – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, its annual festival of Finborough Playwrights, running between 4–22 November 2012. The festival features twelve staged readings of twelve new works for the stage by twelve UK and international playwrights, discovered, developed or championed by the Finborough Theatre.

Following the hugely successful Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights in October 2009, Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights in 2010 which saw 30 Finborough playwrights present 30 new works in 30 days and Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights in July 2011, we return for the fourth year to introduce you to some of the fascinating, diverse and vibrant voices we have nurtured.

Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights  is another great opportunity to see the fruits of the work that happens behind the scenes at the Finborough Theatre as we continue to discover and develop a new generation of theatre makers through our acclaimed Literary Department, our internship programme, our Resident Assistant Director Programme, and our partnership with the National Theatre Studio through their Bursary for Emerging Directors.

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 for writers Chris Lee in 2000, Laura Wade in 2005 (who also went on to win the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, the George Devine Award and an Olivier Award nomination), James Graham in 2006, Al Smith in 2007, Anders Lustgarten in 2009 (also winner of the inaugural Harold Pinter Award), Simon Vinnicombe in 2010 and Dawn King in 2011. Three bursary holders (Laura Wade, James Graham and Anders Lustgarten) have also won the Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play written by a bursary holder. Artistic Director Neil McPherson won The Writers’ Guild Award for the Encouragement of New Writing in 2010 and has twice won the OffWestEnd Award for Best Artistic Director.

The Plays

Sunday, 4 November 2012 at 7.30pm
The Andes by Alexandra Wood.  Directed by David Mercatali.
Cast: Stephanie Beattie. Sian Clifford. David Ellis. Matthew Hendrickson. Cara Horgan. Simon Lenagan. Helen Millar.
Argentina, 2001. A young activist discovers she has a more personal link to her country's troubled past than she ever imagined. What if you're not who you thought you were? What if you're connected to everything you ever despised?

Playwright Alexandra Wood was Literary Manager at the Finborough Theatre from 2006-2007. Her plays include the adaptation of Jung Chang’s Wild Swans (Young Vic, A.R.T., Actors Touring Company), Decade (Headlong), Unbroken (Gate Theatre), The Lion’s Mouth (Rough Cuts at the Royal Court Theatre), The Eleventh Capital (Royal Court Theatre) and the radio play Twelve Years (BBC Radio 4). Short plays include Binary (curious directive at the HighTide Festival), Expecting and Thirty Two Years is Nothing (Rose Bruford at the BAC) and Mile to Go (nabokov at the Latitude Festival). She won the George Devine Award and her work has been shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award.

Director David Mercatali is Associate Director at the Southwark Playhouse. He was nominated in the Outstanding Newcomer category of the 2011 Evening Standard Theatre awards. Directing includes Tender Napalm (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, National Tour and Southwark Playhouse), Someone to Blame (King's Head Theatre), Moonfleece  (Riverside Studios and National Tour), People's Day (Pleasance London), Weights (Blue Elephant Theatre) and Runners - The Return (Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival).

Monday, 5 November 2012 at 7.30pm
The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie
by Anders Lustgarten. Directed by Justin Audibert.

Cast: Ashley Alymann. Gemma Chan. Paul Chan. Tuyen Do. Jessica Henwick. David Lee-Jones. Wendy Kweh. Matthew Leonhart. Pik-Sen Lim. Louise-Mai Newberry. Benedict Wong. Gabby Wong. Daniel York.

An epic, tremendously humane play about the world's most exciting society: China. It follows a clutch of compelling and believable people across seventy years of socialism, capitalism and everything in between. From the communes of Maoism to the factories of Shenzhen, The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie shows you the complexity of China's relationship between the traditional and the modern like no other fiction has.

Playwright Anders Lustgarten is a political playwright and activist. This is his fifth play for the Finborough Theatre where he is Playwright in Residence. Last year he won the inaugural Harold Pinter Playwright's Award at the Royal Court Theatre.

Director Justin Audibert is the current recipient of the National Theatre Studio Bursary for Emerging Directors in association with the Finborough Theatre. From April to October 2012, he was Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio and Associate Director at the Finborough Theatre. Direction includes Front by Vickie Donoghue (RADA Festival), The Tempest (Royal Shakespeare Company), Future Regrets (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Live Theatre Newcastle) and Company along the Mile (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Arcola Theatre and The Lowry, Manchester). From 2009 to 2011, he was Assistant Director on the Long Ensemble at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he has assisted Lucy Bailey, Gregory Doran and David Farr. Justin has taught or directed at Drama Centre, GSA, WAC and ArtsEd, and was Director of Stage and Acting Tutor to the finalists of BBC2’s Shakespeare Off By Heart. He is an Education Associate Practitioner for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Wednesday, 7 November 2012 at 3.00pm
Blackpool  by Matt Roberts. Directed by Amelia Sears.

Cast: Helena Lymbery. Neil McCaul. Samantha Robinson. Joe Sims.

Nicola lives with her incapacitated, abusive Mum, works in a chip shop on the pier and is not happy. On the day of her thirtieth birthday, a stranger arrives with news that changes her life forever. Blackpool is a serious comedy about love, loyalty and obligation. It follows the fraught isolation of a family stranded together, in a town where roller coasters and donkeys just aren’t what they used to be.

Playwright Matt Roberts trained in Acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. His one-act plays The Muse, Risk and Treading Water have been staged at the Soho Theatre, the Crucible Theatre Sheffield, Theatre 503, the Pleasance Theatre and the Tristan Bates Theatre. He has been part of the Soho Young Writers Group and is co-founding Artistic Director of new writing company Papatango. Earlier this year, his debut short film Will Sampson (…and the self-perpetuating cycle of unintended abstinence) received its world premiere at Palm Springs Film Festival. Blackpool is Matt’s first full-length play.

Director Amelia Sears has directed Brimstone and Treacle (Arcola Theatre), Swifter, Higher, Stronger (Roundhouse), Pedestrian (Bristol Old Vic and Edinburgh Festival), The Last Five Years (Duchess Theatre), Jesus Christ it's Christmas, Love in Idleness, The Grill Chef  (Paper Aeroplane Theatre Company at the Bristol Old Vic), and for Westhill Productions of which she is Artistic Director – The Wolf, An Expedition, The Real Inspector Hound and Cold Comfort Farm. She has been an Associate/Staff Director for Ghosts (Duchess Theatre), Twelfth Night (Donmar West End at the Wyndham's Theatre), One Evening and Four Quartets (Lincoln Center, New York City), Al Gran Sole Carico D’Amore (Salzburg Opera Festival), Some Trace of Her, The Year of Magical Thinking and Statement of Regret (National Theatre) and Bliss (Royal Court Theatre). Amelia was the recipient of the 2007/8 Bulldog Princep Directors' Bursary at the National Theatre Studio.

Thursday, 8 November 2012 at 3.00pm
Nothing is the End of the World (except for the End of the World) by Bekah Brunstetter. Directed by Max Pappenheim.

Cast: Kelly Burke. Lisa Caruccio Came. Robin Crouch. Dan Crow. Michael J Hayes. Amanda Hootman. Natalie Kent. Alana Ramsey. Rupert Simonian.

In the near-distant future, a New York City charter school becomes the first to welcome artificially intelligent students. The social experiment becomes a reality show and suddenly priorities and moralities turn inside out as the AIs try to integrate and everyone tries to survive junior year. High school dramedy meets invasion sci-fi in this new play from one of the USA’s hottest new writers.

Playwright Bekah Brunstetter is a former Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre where previous productions of her plays include Oohrah!, You May Go Now – A Marriage Play and Miss Lilly Gets Boned. Her plays include Cutie and Bear (Roundabout Theater), A Long and Happy Life (Naked Angels), Be a Good Little Widow  (Ars Nova, and Collaboraction – Chicago), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival), Oohrah! (Atlantic Theater and Steppenwolf Garage) and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Lark Playwrights Week). She is a New York New Voices Fellow through the Lark Play Development Center, member of The Primary Stages Writer’s Group and the Naked Radio writing team. She is an alumni of the Women’s Project Writer’s Lab, the Ars Nova Play Group and the Playwright’s Realm. She has twice won the Samuel French Short Play Festival, and twice won the New York Innovative Theater Award for Best New Play. She is currently working on an EST Sloan commission, and writing for a new MTV series, created by Craig Wright, Underemployed. She holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill and a MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama.

Director Max Pappenheim returns to the Finborough Theatre where he was Resident Assistant Director and directed Perchance to Dream (2011). Directing includes San Giuda (Southwark Cathedral), The Charmed Life (King's Head Theatre), Finchley Road (LOST Theatre) and Quid Pro Quo (Riverside Studios). Max also works as a Sound Designer, designing the sound and original composition for The Fear of Breathing, The Soft of Her Palm and Barrow Hill, and sound for Hindle Wakes at the Finborough Theatre. His other Sound Designs include Borderland, Kafka v Kafka (Brockley Jack Studio Theatre), Being Tommy Cooper (Old Red Lion Theatre), Four Corners One Heart (Theatre503), Tangent (New Diorama Theatre) and Werther's Sorrows and Salome (Edinburgh Festival). Max was nominated for an OffWestEnd Award 2012 for Best Sound Design.

Sunday, 11 November 2012 at 7.30pm
City Love by Simon Vinnicombe. Directed by Sarah Bedi.

Cast: Natasha Broomfield. Simon Darwen.

Lucy and Jim are alone. To the world they seem to be doing all right: they have jobs, friends, ambitions (well sort of). But inside they are drowning. Until their chance meeting on a London night bus leads to a desperate search for redemption, each through the other. Inevitably, though, their hopes for salvation are dashed as deep-rooted insecurities rise to the surface.

An unflinching look at the opposing human needs for companionship and self-destruction. Sharp observations transform the mundane into the epic, and this grim, witty and agonizingly accurate text will pierce the heart of anyone who has ever been in love.

Playwright Simon Vinnicombe was a Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre. Previous plays produced at the Finborough Theatre include Cradle Me and Year 10. He won a Peggy Ramsay Pearson Award in 2010 and was a member of the BBC Continuing Drama Writers Academy. Theatre includes Untitled (Brit School commission), Wisdom (Manhattan Theatre Club), Turf (Bush Theatre), The Old Vic 24 Hour Plays (The Old Vic), A Night with the Apathists (Union Theatre) and Wilde Tales (Southwark Playhouse). Radio includes Mary Cherry and Hard Road (both for BBC Radio 4).

Director Sarah Bedi's recent work includes SEN Festival 2012 (The Young Vic), Scratch My City (Soho Theatre), Macbeth (The Crypt of St Andrew), nominated for Best Director, Best Production, Best Ensemble and Best Sound Design at the OffWestEnd Awards and Iphigenia at Aulis (Year Out Drama Company). Sarah is currently devising  Prophesy for Baz Productions, for performance next year at Blackall Studios.

Monday, 12 November 2012 at 7.30pm
Pig Girl by Colleen Murphy. Directed by Alex Marker.

Cast: Scott Ainslie. Clare Latham. Jenny Ogilvie. John Sheerman.

At 4:00 a.m. on a secluded Canadian pig farm, a girl tries to yank her life back from a serial killer as the girl’s desperate sister and a haunted Police Officer reach across time and distance in a vain attempt to rescue her. Inspired by a true story.

Playwright Colleen Murphy is a Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre where her previous plays include The December Man (L’homme de decembre),The Goodnight Bird, The Piper and Beating Heart Cadaver. She is also currently a Playwright in Residence at the Factory Theatre in Toronto and Guest Playwright at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton. She is working on a number of new plays including Pig Girl, The Birthday Boy and Monologues for a Paraplegic Heart.  Her play The December Man (L’homme de decembre) won Canada’s Governor General’s Award in 2007.  Other plays include The Goodnight Bird, Deliver Me, The Piper, Beating Heart Cadaver (shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award in 1999) and Down in Adoration Falling. Colleen is also an award-winning filmmaker whose films have played festivals around the world.  As a librettist, she works with San Diego composer, Aaron Gervais. Their full length opera, The Enslavement and Liberations of Oksana G. is being produced through Tapestry New Opera in Toronto in 2015.

Director Alex Marker's productions at the Finborough Theatre include a staged reading of Iain Finlay MacLeod's Atman, starring Jasper Britton and Alan Cox, as part of Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights (2010) and a sell-out revival of William Douglas Home's Portraits (2011). Alex has also been Resident Designer of the Finborough Theatre since 2002. He is also the Director of the Questors Youth Theatre, the largest youth theatre in London.

Wednesday, 14 November 2012 at 3.00pm
Upstairs by Joy Wilkinson. Directed by Stephen Keyworth.

Cast: Queen Allen. Vera Chok. Nathan Clarke. Judith Coke. Elicia Daly. Aykut Hilmi. Rachel Marwood. Niall Phillips. Jonathan Rhodes.

Upstairs is a comedy about servants in the 21st Century, who are now based on the other side of the world, instead of below stairs at Downton Abbey. But tonight Ian Kirkland’s servants have come to visit his Croydon terrace. Have they really come to help or do they want something more? Upstairs was developed on attachment at the National Theatre Studio.

Playwright Joy Wilkinson’s previous productions at the Finborough Theatre include Fair – and its subsequent West End transfer to Trafalgar Studios. Her plays include Now is the Time and Acting Leader (Tricycle Theatre), Felt Effects (Theatre 503), and The Sweet Science of Bruising (National Theatre Studio). 'Joy's first play won the Verity Bargate Award and she was recently shortlisted for the Brian Way Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. For television, she has written The Life and Adventures of Nick Nickleby, a five-part modern adaptation of the Dickens novel for the BBC. She has also written for Land Girls, is a core writer on Doctors, and has written original plays and adaptations for BBC Radio 4.

Director Stephen Keyworth's previous productions at the Finborough Theatre include Sarah Grochala’s S-27, Fanny and Faggot (which transferred to Trafalgar Studios), and Dog Well Done (Winner of the Amnesty Theatre Award).  Stephen was Artistic Director of 5065 Lift. On June 21 2005, Flight 5065 filled all 32 capsules of the London Eye with theatre, comedy and music including Damon Albarn, Jo Brand, and the National and Royal Court Theatres. He directed two of the fourteen world premieres they commissioned and his own adaptation of Rory Kilalea’s Zimbabwe Boy went on afterwards to be performed on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre. His plays include Mad For It (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), nominated as Best New Play in the Manchester Evening News  Theatre Awards. As one of eight writers in the BBC’s 2006 Writers Academy, he has written for EastEnders, Casualty and Doctors. Plays for Radio 4 include The Continuity Man, My Difficult Second Album, Gondwanaland and a ten part adaptation of Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms. Stephen is Artistic Director of Lifeboat Theatre.

Thursday, 15 November 2012 at 3.00pm
Carthage by Chris Thompson. Directed by Robert Hastie.

Cast: Richard Beanland. John Hodgkinson. Jake Mann. Georgina Rich. Jemima Rooper. Toby Wharton. Robin Whiting.

A mother fights to hold the authorities to account for the death of her son in custody. But who do you blame when no one is guilty? Carthage questions who can raise children best when the systems designed to protect them can be as abusive as the situations from which they were rescued. An unflinching play about guilt, blame and the power of human touch.

Playwright Chris Thompson is a social worker. Over the last ten years, he has worked with young people in care, young offenders and in child protection. He currently works in young people’s sexual health in the NHS. Carthage is his first play.

Director Robert Hastie returns to theFinborough Theatre where he directed the acclaimed first production in over 40 years of John McGrath's Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun in May 2012. He was Associate Director for Sixty-Six Books which opened the new Bush Theatre where he also directed the world premieres of In The Land of Uz by Neil LaBute, The Middle Man by Anthony Weigh, David and Goliath by Andrew Motion, Snow In Sheffield by Helen Mort and A Lost Expression by Luke Kennard. He was Associate Director of Much Ado About Nothing starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate (Wyndham's Theatre). He co-founded The Lamb Players, for whom he has co-directed As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice. He has assisted Josie Rourke, Peter Gill and Laurie Sansom, and is an Associate Artist of the National Youth Theatre and a Connections Director for the National Theatre Connections programme. Robert originally trained as an actor at RADA, and his acting credits include work at the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, with Cheek By Jowl, Frantic Assembly and Headlong, and in the West End.

Sunday, 18 November 2012 at 7.30pm
The Precariat by Chris Dunkley.  Directed by Louise Hill.

Cast: Sian Clifford. Marc Geoffrey. Joe Marsh. Chris New. Ted Reilly. Zoe Thorne.

In amongst the flying debris, the semi-distant crackle of burning shops and chanting rioters, Bethan freezes, staring at the chicken. Pecking inscrutably at the cracked pavement and calmly dodging sprinting looters, it crosses the high street towards the video shop. Bethan realises the chicken, so sure of its place in the world, has outranked her. She shouldn’t be here. Neither should her unborn child. As she confronts her situation and struggles to find a foothold, the pressures of poverty and single parenthood force her to face an uncomfortable truth.

Playwright Chris Dunkley's previous productions at the Finborough Theatre include Mirita which was named Time Out Critics' Choice, and transferred Off Broadway to the Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City, alongside his short play Lisa Says. The Soft of Her Palm is being produced at the Finborough Theatre in October 2012.  Chris is currently commissioned by the Arts Council to research and write The Precariat, a new play that will premiere as part of this festival. Other theatre includes Almost Blue (Riverside Studios), How to Tell the Truth (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Lucy is a Minger (Spinney Hill Theatre, Northampton) and The Festival (Wimbledon Studio Theatre). Radio includes The All Colour Vegetarian Cookbook and The Architects, both for the BBC. Chris has been Writer in Residence at Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton, and Writer on Attachment at the Royal Court Theatre. He was the 2002 winner of the International Student Playscript Competition and winner of the PMA Writers’ Award in 2001.

Director Louise Hill has directed two sell-out productions of plays by J.M. Barrie at the Finborough Theatre – What Every Woman Knows and Quality Street – for which she was named Best Newcomer Director by the British Theatre Guide and nominated as Best Director at the OffWestEnd Awards; and the first London revival for many years of Sutton Vane's Outward Bound in February 2012. She trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and spent two years as Artistic Director of the Bristol Shakespeare Festival. She is currently directing David Mamet's Boston Marriage for Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Other directing includes Spiders and Crocodile Tears (Soho Theatre Studio), To a Sunless Sea (Etcetera Theatre), Face to Face (Old Red Lion Theatre), The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew (Middle Temple Gardens), Tiny Dynamite (Alma Tavern Theatre, Bristol) and IAGO, her own adaptation of Othello, for which she won a Fringe Review Outstanding Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Festival. She was Associate Director on Travesties and The Importance of Being Earnest  (Birmingham Rep). Assistant direction includes Blackbird and The Winslow Boy (both Salisbury Playhouse).

Monday, 19 November 2012 at 7.30pm
Thérèse Raquin. Based on the novel by Emile Zola. Music by Craig Adams. Book and Lyrics by Nona Shepphard. Directed by Nona Shepphard. 

Cast: Madalena Alberta. Katie Brayben. Laura Brydon. Sam Cooke. Carl Douglas. Bart Edwards. Alex Gaumond. Amy Hill. Ci Ci Howells. Michael Peavoy. Hannah Powell. David Roberts. Rebecca Trehearn. 

A thrilling new musical. Thérèse Raquin’s life with her Aunt, Madame Raquin, and her sickly husband Camille, in a small haberdasher’s in the Passage du Pont Neuf is a monotonous and stifling one, until the day Camille brings home a boyhood friend, Laurent, and Thérèse falls passionately and desperately in love... A passion that leads to another wedding and three deaths.

Composer Craig Adams is the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at the Finborough Theatre, facilitated by Mercury Musical Developments and Musical Theatre Network UK. His scores include LIFT (concept album available on iTunes), Battlements (Vanbrugh Theatre), The Watchers and Ghosts of the Past (YMT:UK), Ballet People (The Place) and DEFECT (currently in development with Perfect Pitch). Musical Arrangements and Direction include Kerry Ellis – The Great British Songbook and On the Edge (London Hippodrome), Julie Atherton’s album, No Space for Air, and Up Close with Louise Dearman. www.craigadamsmusic.com / Twitter @Musiccraigadams

Librettist and Director Nona Shepphard is a freelance writer, director and deviser with over 150 productions and 40 commissioned plays to her credit. Her plays for young people, which have received several awards, have been seen in the USA, Canada, Europe and Russia. Her recent writing includes Signs of a Star-Shaped Diva (GraeaeTheatre Company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East). She is an Associate Director of RADA and Creative Director of RADA Enterprises.

The performance will last approximately one hour and will feature Act One from a full length piece.

Wednesday, 21 November at 3.00pm
Foreverland  by Dawn King. Directed by Blanche McIntyre.

Cast: Mark Armstrong. Jane Bertish. Ben Caplan. Becci Gemmell. Harry Melling. Rose Reynolds. Georgina Strawson. Rebecca Todd. Hara Yannas.

Inside the high walls of luxury community Vantage Heights, called "Foreverland" by those who live outside it, billionaire playboy Adam Boreal lives an unchanging life of excess waited on by his servant Mai. When his family decide to curb his behaviour by cutting off his allowance, he's forced to grow up in the most painful way imaginable. A new play about wealth, privilege and our fear of ageing.

Playwright Dawn King is currently Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre. Dawn’s play Foxfinder won the Papatango writing competition in 2011 and was produced at the Finborough Theatre where it was critically acclaimed and sold out. Foxfinder won Dawn the Most Promising Playwright award at the OffWestEnd Awards 2012. She was one of ten writers chosen for the BBC WritersRoom 10 scheme, and through this received a seed commission to write for West Yorkshire Playhouse. Previous plays include Water Sculptures/ZOO double bill (Union Theatre), Face Value (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), and Doghead Boy and Sharkmouth Go To Ikea  (The Junction, Cambridge). Dawn writes regularly for BBC Radio and her short film The Karman Line will premiere at film festivals this year.

Director Blanche McIntyre returns to the Finborough Theatre where she directed the sell-out productions of Foxfinder, Accolade and Molière or the League of Hypocrites. Blanche was the winner of the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2012, for Foxfinder and Accolade, and the Off West End Theatre Award for Best Director for Accolade. She won the inaugural Leverhulme Bursary for Emerging Theatre Directors becoming Director in Residence at the National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre in 2009. She was also an Associate Director at Out of Joint in 2010, and is an Associate Artist for Hightide Festival Theatre. Directing includes The Only True History of Lizzie Finn (Southwark Playhouse), The Seven Year Itch (Salisbury Playhouse), Repentance/Behind The Lines (ANGLE at the Bush Theatre), When Did You Last See My Mother? (Trafalgar Studios), Pinching For My Soul (Focus Theatre, Dublin), Robin Hood (Latitude), Open Heart Surgery (Soho Theatre and Southwark Playhouse), Wuthering Heights (National Tour), The Revenger’s Tragedy (BAC), The Master and Margarita (Greenwich Playhouse), Three Hours After Marriage (Union Theatre), Doctor Faustus, The Devil Is An Ass and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as Told to Carl Jung by an Inmate of Broadmoor Asylum (White Bear Theatre), Cressida and The Invention of Love (Edinburgh Festival) and Prometheus Bound (Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford).

Thursday, 22 November at 3.00pm
Almost Here by Pamela Carter. Directed by Donnacadh O’Briain.

Cast: John Paul Connolly. Mariam Haque. Joshua James. Lisa Kay. Michael Lyle. Rochenda Sandall. Joshua Silver. Theo Stevenson.

A unit of British soldiers are lost in Afghanistan; back home, an artist and an engineer worry about the strange behaviour of their nine year old son and his imaginary friend.  They are all in it together.

Almost Here is a dark and funny play about wanting to be a part of something.

Playwright Pamela Carter lives in London. Her plays produced in the UK include Skåne (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs; winner of Berlin Theatertreffen Stückemarkt 2012), What We Know (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) and Slope and An Argument About Sex (after Marivaux’s La Dispute) for Stewart Laing’s untitled Projects. Since 2010, she has been writing for the Swedish conceptual art duo Goldin+Senneby on The Nordenskiöld Model, their on-going investigation into algorithmic trading and financial reality. As a dramaturg, she has worked with companies including the National Theatre of Scotland, Malmö Opera House, and Vanishing Point (Interiors, and Saturday Night). Currently, she is the IASH/Traverse Theatre Creative Fellow at Edinburgh University, and is also under commission to Hampstead Theatre. Almost Here will premiere at the Staatschausspiele in Dresden, Germany in 2013.

Director Donnacadh O’Briain directed The Early Bird by Leo Butler at the Finborough Theatre which transferred to the Project Theatre, Dublin. Donnacadh is Artistic Director of Natural Shocks for whom he recently created PEEP, a new pop-up touring venue, which premiered new work by Pamela Carter, Leo Butler and Kefi Chadwick at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Directing includes Mathematics of the Heart by Kefi Chadwick (Brighton Fringe Best New Play and Theatre503),  a revised version of From Both Hips by Mark O’Rowe (RADA), Between Life and Nowhere devised by the company (Theatre Delicatessen), King Lear  (Irish National Tour for Second Age) and Richard III (Southwark Playhouse). He has worked with directors such as Dominic Cooke, Gregory Doran, Simon McBurney and Michael Boyd, with whom he worked on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi award-winning Histories Cycle. He has taught acting at several top drama schools and was Royal Shakespeare Company Artist in Residence at Warwick University.

Cast

Scott Ainslie
Queen Allen
Madalena Alberta
Ashley Alymann
Mark Armstrong
Stephanie Beattie
Jane Bertish
Katie Brayben
Natasha Broomfield
Laura Brydon
Kelly Burke
Lisa Caruccio Came
Ben Caplan
Gemma Chan
Paul Chan
Vera Chok
Nathan Clarke
Sian Clifford
Judith Coke
John Paul Connolly
Sam Cooke
Robin Crouch
Dan Crow
Elicia Daly
Simon Darwen

Tuyen Do
Carl Douglas
Bart Edwards
David Ellis
Alex Gaumond
Becci Gemmell
Marc Geoffrey
Mariam Haque
Michael J Hayes
Matthew Hendrickson
Jessica Henwick
Amy Hill
Aykut Hilmi
Amanda Hootman
Cara Horgan
Ci Ci Howells
Joshua James
Lisa Kay
Natalie Kent
Wendy Kweh
Clare Latham
David Lee-Jones
Simon Lenagan
Matthew Leonhart
Pik-Sen Lim
Michael Lyle
Helena Lymbery
Joe Marsh
Rachel Marwood
Neil McCaul
Harry Melling
Helen Millar
Chris New
Louise-Mai Newberry
Jenny Ogilvie
Michael Peavoy
Niall Phillips
Hannah Powell
Alana Ramsey
Ted Reilly
Rose Reynolds
Jonathan Rhodes
David Roberts
Samantha Robinson
Rochenda Sandall
John Sheerman
Joshua Silver
Rupert Simonian
Joe Sims
Theo Stevenson
Georgina Strawson
Zoe Thorne
Rebecca Todd
Rebecca Trehearne
Benedict Wong
Gabby Wong
Hara Yannas
Daniel York

4 - 22 November 2012

Tickets and Times

Monday 7:30pm
Wednesday 3:00pm
Thursday 3:00pm
Sunday 7:30pm