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Press Information 1

1980-2010 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FINBOROUGH

The presents Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights 30 NEW PLAYS TO CELEBRATE 30 YEARS OF THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE IN JUST UNDER 30 DAYS

Van Badham Mike Bartlett Bekah Brunstetter Claire Dowie Christopher Dunkley David Eldridge John A.D. Fraser James Graham Sarah Grochala Titas Halder Steve Hennessy David Hutchison Nicholas de Jongh Aram Kouyoumdjian Brian Logan Anders Lustgarten Iain Finlay MacLeod Alistair McDowall Colleen Murphy Mark Ravenhill Simon Vinnicombe Jane Wainwright Naomi Wallace Michael Louis Wells Joy Wilkinson Phil Willmott Alexandra Wood

Directors include Adam Barnard. Zena Birch. Ellie Browning. Daniel Burgess. Claire Dowie. Helen Eastman. Clive Judd. John Kachoyan. Stephen Keyworth. Ben Kidd. Adam Lenson. Clare Lizzimore. Michael Longhurst. Chris Loveless. Tim Luscombe. Alex Marker. Jo McInnes. Blanche McIntyre. Rae Mcken. Caitlin McLeod. Wilson Milam. Nick Philippou. Eleanor Rhode. Alexander Summers. Kate Wasserberg. Colin Watkeys. Phil Willmott. Robert Wolstenholme.

Curated by Finborough Theatre Artistic Director Neil McPherson

Produced by Dara Gilroy, Lucy Jackson, Rachel Lambert and Sarah Loader.

118 Finborough Road, SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 2

Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights 30 NEW PLAYS TO CELEBRATE 30 YEARS OF THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE IN JUST UNDER 30 DAYS

To celebrate its 30th anniversary year, the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre presents an anniversary festival of thirty new works for the stage by thirty UK and international playwrights, discovered, developed or championed by the Finborough Theatre, featuring many premieres of brand new plays by some of the famous playwrights who began their careers at the Finborough Theatre.

Artistic Director Neil McPherson says: “Instead of celebrating our birthday by just reviving all our old successes, and following the great success of Vibrant A Festival of Finborough Playwrights in October 2009, we decided to celebrate by presenting another festival, but this time featuring staged readings of brand new plays by some of the well-known names who began their careers at the Finborough Theatre over the last thirty years including Mike Bartlett, Claire Dowie, David Eldridge, James Graham, Nicholas de Jongh, Peter Oswald, Nick Payne, Mark Ravenhill, Laura Wade, Naomi Wallace, Phil Willmott and Alexandra Wood, alongside some of the new writers we have discovered, developed or championed in recent years.”

“We hope that our anniversary festival will be a broad celebration of both the past and the future of our work with a fascinating and idiosyncratic selection of new plays, ranging from the startlingly contemporary to drama in blank verse, from hard hitting political work to two new pieces of British musical theatre, from intimate monologues to ambitious epics. The writers’ ages vary from their early 20s to their 60s (building on our commitment to nurture new writers over 30 who continue to be neglected by other new writing organisations) and they come from a wide variety of backgrounds including playwrights from all over England (including a brand new British Asian playwright and debuts from writers from the North East and the East Midlands), Scotland (including an English language world premiere by Scotland’s leading contemporary Scots Gaelic writer, and a new play in the Scots language itself) as well as playwrights from Australia, Canada and from all over the United States (including a European premiere from one of the USA’s leading Armenian- American playwrights).”

Despite remaining completely unfunded, the Finborough Theatre has an unparalleled track record of discovering new talent who go on to become leading voices in British theatre and entertainment.

In the 1980s, the Finborough Theatre featured the first work of many comedians, writers and artists such as Clive Barker, Neil Bartlett, Jo Brand, Rory Bremner, Nica Burns, , Ken Campbell, Julian Clary, Claire Dowie, Jenny Éclair, Harry Enfield, Jeremy Hardy, Ainsley Harriott, John Hegley, Wendy Houstoun of DV8, Mark Lamarr, Paul Merton, Neil Mullarkey, Mike Myers, , Arthur Smith, Mark Steel, Mark Thomas and Benjamin Zephaniah. “I cannot recommend strongly enough a visit to the Finborough” Michael Coveney, Financial Times 1984.

In the 1990s, it became a “hotbed of new writing” with first plays by such well known names as David Eldridge, David Farr, Conor McPherson, Tony Marchant, , Mark Ravenhill, Naomi Wallace and Phil Willmott, and actors such as and Nicola Walker. “Over the last three years, the Finborough has seriously rivalled the Royal Court, Hampstead and the Bush as a venue for new writing" Michael Billlington, 1994.

Since 2000 – under Artistic Director Neil McPherson – the Finborough Theatre has discovered some of the UK’s most exciting new talent including playwrights Mike Bartlett, James Graham, Sarah Grochala, Nicholas de Jongh, Chris Lee, Anders Lustgarten, Nick Payne, Al Smith, , Simon Vinnicombe, Laura Wade, Joy Wilkinson and Alexandra Wood. It is the only theatre without public funding to be awarded the prestigious Pearson Playwriting Award bursary (2000, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010) as well as twice winning Pearson’s Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play written by a bursary holder. During this time, the Finborough Theatre has also expanded its repertoire to include music theatre and an unwavering commitment to the rediscovery of neglected drama from the past. ”One of the most stimulating venues in London, fielding a programme that is a bold mix of trenchant, politically thought-provoking new drama and shrewdly chosen revivals of neglected works from the past.” Paul Taylor, The Independent 2007.

The festival is also an 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 hugely successful

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 3 internship programme, our Resident Assistant Director Programme, our partnership with the National Theatre Studio – the Leverhulme Bursary for Emerging Directors, and our Literary Department.

Working closely with the Artistic Director, the Finborough Theatre’s Literary Department – Literary Manager Van Badham, Senior Reader Laura Jessop and Literary Assistant Daniel Burgess – discovers and nurtures new playwrights, both in the UK and internationally, and is evolving a new model for “literary management”. “It says a great deal about the systems and structures of new writing in UK 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, 2009.

Working in the text-based tradition, the unique energy of the Finborough Theatre is the paradox sustained by staging ambitious and epic work within the confines of a boutique space. We seek to develop new work that is:

Thematically expansive: In the words of our Artistic Director, the Finborough Theatre is interested in “plays that matter on subjects that matter, regardless of fashion”. We are interested in playwrights and plays that present unique challenges to ideological assumptions about community, nation and world.

Ideologically Brave: The Finborough Theatre has developed an enviable reputation as an intellectual hot-house of ideas and confrontation. We are a theatre that programmes plays to challenge the vanities, hypocrisies and oppressions of our times. We actively bring fresh voices into social debates and the world into a 50-seat space in Earl’s Court.

Artistically Ambitious: We actively seek playwrights who have moving and unusual insights into the nature of our social world, and whose theatrical voice and vision are unique.

We do hope that you will come and help us celebrate our 30th birthday…

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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The festival includes – and is centred around – a month long run of award-winning Finborough Theatre Playwright-in- Residence James Graham’s new play, The Man…

Tuesday, 25 May – Saturday, 19 June 2010 Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm. Saturday Matinees at 3.00pm (from 5 June 2010). Sunday Matinees at 3.00pm. World Premiere The Man by James Graham. Directed by Kate Wasserberg. Lighting by Tom White.

Award-winning Playwright-in-Residence James Graham reunites with former Finborough Theatre Associate Director Kate Wasserberg to present a blackly comic and uniquely interactive storytelling event – a different actor, telling a story in a different order, selected at random, every single night. The Man was first performed in last year’s Vibrant A Festival of Finborough Playwrights by the playwright himself.

Tax is really, really taxing for Ben Edwards. Self Employed. And afraid… And now he must face his dreaded self assessment form, with every receipt evoking the good times and the bad. With each receipt drawn out at random, Ben begins to stitch together the patchwork quilt that was the Tax Year 2009/2010 – a year that was both hilarious and tragic, all mixed up in one shoe box of receipts.

Full casting for The Man will be announced shortly, but some of the actors will include (The History Boys, Desperate Romantics, The Whisky Taster, winner of a Drama Desk Award on Broadway and a WhatsOnStage Theatregoers Choice Awards, and a nominee for an Olivier Award, a Tony Award and an Evening Standard Award); Leander Deeny (The Representative, Shakespeare’s Globe, Atonement) and the playwright himself. Performance length: 65 minutes with no interval.

Playwright James Graham is a Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre. In 2003, James sent an unsolicited script to the Finborough Theatre which went on to present 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 (Tory Boyz), Clywd Theatr Cymru (A History of Falling Things), BBC Radio 4, ITV1 (Caught in a Trap starring Connie Fisher), and the (Sudden Loss of Dignity and The Whisky Taster – Five Stars, The Independent and The Telegraph), as well as the forthcoming Huck (National Tour and ).

Director Kate Wasserberg was previously Associate Director at the Finborough Theatre where she directed Sons of York and Little Madam, both by James Graham, and The Representative, I Wish to Die Singing and The New Morality. She was previously the Finborough Theatre’s first Resident Assistant Director. She is now New Plays Director at Clwyd Theatr Cymru where she has directed The Glass Menagerie (also National Tour), James Graham’s A History of Falling Things (also Sherman Cymru) and Pieces by Hywel John.

The festival then continues with staged readings of…

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights WEEK ONE – 26 May-30 May 2010

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Bull by Mike Bartlett. Directed by Clare Lizzimore.

“It’s not the losing that matters, - it’s the taking part”. Faced with recession and cutbacks, the company has decided to lose someone from Thomas's team. He is determined it won't be him, but his two colleagues have other ideas. Written in the form of a bull-fight, with graphic language and imagery, Bull depicts ritual competition and bullying in the modern work place. Performance length: 50 minutes.

Playwright Mike Bartlett’s first professional theatre job was as an Assistant Director on Soldiers at the Finborough Theatre in 2004. He subsequently co-directed Lark Rise to Candleford with John Terry of Shapeshifter, and wrote three plays for the Finborough Theatre – Fearing, Leaving and Falling in 2005. His plays include My Child, Contractions, Cock () and Artefacts (Bush Theatre, Nabokov and Off Broadway). His radio plays include Not Talking, The Steps (Radio 3), Love Contract, The Family Man, Liam (Radio 4). He has also directed Honest (Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton), Class (Tristan Bates Theatre) and co-directed King Arthur with John Terry (). Mike’s play Cock won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre in 2010. He won New Voices award for Artefacts, the Writer’s Guild Tinniswood and Imison prizes for Not Talking, and was the Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Royal Court Theatre in 2007. His new play Earthquakes in London will be produced this August at the National Theatre.

Director Clare Lizzimore is an award winning theatre director. Her credits include Faces in the Crowd by Leo Butler (Royal Court Theatre), War and Peace, Fear and Misery by Mark Ravenhill (Royal Court Theatre and Latitude Festival), On the Rocks by Amy Rosenthal (), Jonah and Otto by (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Tom Fool by Franz Xaver Kroetz (Glasgow Citizens Theatre and Bush Theatre – Nominated for four CATS Awards), The Most Humane Way to Kill A Lobster by Duncan Macmillan (Theatre 503) and, as Co-Director with Max Stafford Clark, The Mother by Mark Ravenhill (Royal Court Theatre). Her awards include the Channel 4 Theatre Directors Award 2005/06 and the Arts Foundation Theatre Directing Fellowship 2009. Clare has also directed new plays from Russia, Nigeria, Portugal and Romania, and travelled extensively for the Royal Court Theatre’s International Programme, developing new plays with artists in Africa and The Middle East. _____

Thursday, 27 May 2010 at 9.00pm European Premiere Seven Pages Unsigned by Michael Louis Wells. Directed by Wilson Milam.

It's the evening of the Winter Solstice, ‘The Darkest of the Year’. College friends, gathered for an engagement party in NYC's Hell's Kitchen, escape to the rooftop for fresh air. Still reeling from the of one of their number, they dodge and confront the difficult choices that face them... Performance length: Approximately 90 minutes.

Playwright Michael Louis Wells’ District of Columbia was given a staged reading at the Finborough Theatre in 2007 following its premiere off-Broadway at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre (where he is a company member), Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company and Washington DC’s Arena Stage. Michael made his professional debut in New York with Real Real Gone, published by Smith and Kraus. Other plays include Taken by Faeries (Verity Bargate finalist, Soho Theatre), The “I” Word: Interns, produced in New York and published by Faber & Faber, and Detail, winner of the London New Play Festival and recently produced in a new version in New York. His short piece, Two From The Line, was a Heideman Award finalist at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humanafest and was selected for publication by Smith and Kraus for their Best Ten Minute Plays 2008. Seven Pages Unsigned was a 2008 New Voices West honoree and received a workshop production at the Magic Theatre, San Francisco, under Artistic Director Chris Smith. It has also had readings in

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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New York at The Dramatists Guild, and in Los Angeles for Rogue Machine Theatre Company and The Road Theatre Company.

Director Wilson Milam’s UK and Ireland theatre includes Harvest, Flesh Wound, Fresh Kills (Royal Court Theatre), Lay Me Down Softly, Defender of the Faith, On Such As We (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), (Shakespeare's Globe), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Barbican Theatre and ), the twice Olivier Award nominated Hurlyburly (The Peter Hall Company at The Old Vic and Queen's Theatre), True West (Bristol Old Vic), A Lie of the Mind (), The Wexford Trilogy (Tricycle Theatre), Chimps (Liverpool Playhouse), Bug (), Killer Joe (Bush Theatre, and Traverse Theatre, ). US theatre includes Glengarry Glen Ross, The Seafarer (Seattle Repertory Theatre), Poor Beast In The Rain (Matrix Theatre Company), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Atlantic Theatre Company and Lyceum Theatre, Broadway), Closer (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Bug (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington DC), Killer Joe (29th St. Rep, Illinois, and Soho Playhouse, New York), Pot Mom (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago) andThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (A Red Orchid Theatre, Chicago). Television includes : Scream of the Shalka (BBC). Awards include The Scotsman Fringe First Award for Killer Joe, and a Tony Award Nomination for Best Director of a Play (The Lieutenant of Inishmore). _____

Friday, 28 May 2010 at 3.00pm World Premiere Some Stories by Alistair McDowall. Directed by Clive Judd.

A woman alone with answering machines. A man trapped in a body that disagrees with him. A woman talking with an empty chair. A girl with a head full of stories. Four stories of love, loss and childhood. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 5 minutes.

Playwright Alistair McDowall is from the North East of England and submitted Some Stories to the Finborough Theatre’s Literary Department in 2010. His previous plays include eighteen stupid reasons why i love you lots and lots (winner of Best New Writing Award at Buxton Fringe Festival 2009), 5:30 (Nominated for Best New Play at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards), Nettles (Contact Theatre, Manchester) and Daisies (part of Manchester’s 24:7 Theatre Festival). He is currently developing a new play for production at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

Director Clive Judd’s credits include 5:30 (Library Theatre, Manchester and National Tour) and Herons (Library Theatre, Manchester, and National Student Drama Festival). Assistant Direction includes Punk Rock (Lyric Theatre, , and Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester). Clive was awarded the Director’s Guild Award for Most Promising Director at the National Student Drama Festival 2009. _____

Friday, 28 May 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Adam Lives in Theory by Nick Payne. Directed by Adam Lenson.

Harry's son, Adam, disappeared six months ago. A group of middle aged men now think they know exactly where he has gone. A play about faith, and UFOs. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes.

Playwright Nick Payne workshopped his first play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet with the Finborough Theatre Literary Department in 2007. It was subsequently premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2009, directed by . Nick studied English Literature at the University of York. In 2009, he was awarded the Award for Most Promising Playwright. He is currently the Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Bush Theatre.

Director Adam Lenson directed the UK premieres of Little Fish and Ordinary Days at the Finborough Theatre. Other directing includes Immaculate (), The Rain King (Start Night at Hampstead Theatre), Hades (Theatre 503), Bifurcated (Nabakov Present Tense at Southwark Playhouse), Cell Begat Cell (Symposium at The Old Vic) and

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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These Memories Must Go (24 Hour Plays at The Old Vic). Assistant and Resident Directing includes Six Degrees Of Separation (Old Vic), An Inspector Calls (West End and National Tour), La Cage Aux Folles ( and West End), Talent (Menier Chocolate Factory) and The Music Man (Chichester Festival Theatre). He studied at Cambridge University and trained on the National Theatre Studio Directors' Course. _____

Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 9.00pm “Beginning at the Finborough…” Mark Ravenhill in conversation with Van Badham

Playwright Mark Ravenhill began his career at the Finborough Theatre in the early 1990s, writing, directing and serving as Literary Manager. His worldwide hit play, Shopping and F***king, received its world premiere reading at the Finborough Theatre in 1995, and was subsequently seen at the Royal Court Theatre in an Out of Joint production, in the West End and on Broadway. His other plays include Faust Is Dead (National Tour), Handbag, Some Explicit Polaroids (New Ambassadors Theatre) and Mother Clap’s Molly House (National Theatre and West End). Radio plays include Feed Me (BBC Radio 3). Other published works include Totally Over You, The Cut, Product, Citizenship, pool (no water) and Over There. His awards include an Evening Standard Award for Handbag. Mark has also been Literary Director of Paines Plough, where he organised Sleeping Around, a collaborative writing project. Van Badham is the Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre Conversation length: Approximately 1 hour. _____

Sunday, 30 May 2010 at 7.30pm World Premiere Make Me A by Simon Vinnicombe. Directed by Robert Wolstenholme.

“Have you ever thought that having cancer might be quite good?...You could be brave...Or dignified...You could be something”. Zuel’s just a normal kid from Mile End – desperately trying to find his place in the world. When charismatic Wasim takes him under his wing and offers him a sense of belonging, events are set in motion that can only end in tragedy… Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 40 minutes.

Playwright 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, and Wisdom was part of last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights festival. 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, the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, and on BBC Radio 4.

Director Robert Wolstenholme trained at The University of Warwick, Drama Studio, London, and on the National Theatre Studio Directors’ Programme. Recent directing includes Gilbert is Dead ( Theatre), One Minute (Courtyard Theatre), The Night Before Christmas (), Here (Tristan Bates Theatre), Private Lives (Canal Café Theatre), Guerilla/Whore (), The Unattended (Edinburgh Festival), This to This (Union Theatre and Colour House Theatres), Gift, If No One Loves You, Change (King’s Head Theatre) and A Snow Scene (). Robert has also directed staged readings for the Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre and for Old Vic New Voices. _____

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights WEEK TWO – 31 May–6 June 2010

Monday, 31 May 2010 at 7.30pm World Premiere Lights in the Sky by Joy Wilkinson. Directed by Helen Eastman.

“The perfect robbery. And the perfect revolution. The black-out ends. The system restarts and – bang! Back to the Stone Age. Everyone’s debts disappear.” Townsend fits the lights on top of skyscrapers. Durkin is a CEO who’s afraid of the dark. A bad joke goes wrong, bringing them together on the top of the world, in pitch blackness, to plot the biggest bank robbery in history. A dark comedy about our current crises and the light at the end of the tunnel. Performance length: Approximately 80 minutes.

Playwright Joy Wilkinson made her London debut at the Finborough Theatre with Fair which subsequently went on National Tour and transferred to the West End. Her other plays include Felt Effects (Theatre 503 and winner of the Verity Bargate Award) and Now Is The Time (Tricycle Theatre’s The Great Game season). Forthcoming theatre includes Acting Leader, part of the Tricycle Theatre’s Women, Power and Politics season in June 2010. Joy has recently completed an attachment at the National Theatre Studio and is now writing a new play for the Liverpool Everyman. She also writes for Radio and was a graduate of the BBC's inaugural Writers' Academy.

Director Helen Eastman has directed many plays for the Finborough Theatre including The Monument, Fair (transferring to Trafalgar Studios), The Gabriels, Live Canon: Committed and The Immortal Memory – The 250th Burns Night. She trained as a director at LAMDA after graduating from Oxford University. Theatre includes Circus Etc (The De La Warr Pavilion), Dido and Aeneas (English Touring Opera at the and National Tour), Hansel and Gretel (Cork Opera House), The Sweet Science of Bruising (National Theatre Studio), Cloudcuckooland (National Tour – Total Theatre Award Nomination), Wild Raspberries (Glasgow Citizens Theatre), Speakout (English Touring Opera and the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch), Bug Off (OTC), The Cure at Troy (BAC, Delphi International Festival and tour) and the world premiere of Julian Joseph’s jazz opera Bridgetower (Hackney Empire and tour). She is Producer of the Onassis Programme at Oxford University, a Guest Fellow in Theatre at Westminster University and a member of the Associate Literary Panel at Soho Theatre. She is currently Associate Director on In the Night Garden Live, Director of the 40th Triennial Cambridge Greek Play, Agamemnon, and writer and associate director of Hercules for the inaugural Chester Festival. _____

Tuesday, 1 June 2010 at 9.00pm English Premiere/World Premiere in English Atman by Iain Finlay MacLeod. Directed by Alex Marker.

A is lonely. A works in the library. One day he goes through the wrong door and ends up in a strange room filled with books, as far as the eye can see. He feels strangely drawn to one of the books, so he picks it up and begins to read. In it is his life, in minute detail. It takes thirty pages to describe the first time he ate something sweet. Fifty pages to describe his first memory. Soon, he can do nothing apart from read. B, a psychiatrist he regularly sees, suggests an experiment. To see if it will help. He suggests writing in the book and seeing what happens. Inspired by the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, Atman was first performed in Scots Gaelic by Tosg Theatre Company on a Highlands tour and now receives its English language world premiere. Performance length: Approximately 50 minutes.

Playwright Iain Finlay MacLeod made his English debut at the Finborough Theatre in 2009 with I Was A Beautiful Day in a production which has recently transferred to the Tron Theatre, Glasgow. He is one of Scotland’s most prolific contemporary Scots Gaelic writers, having written many works for theatre, radio, film and television. Writing in both English and his native Scots Gaelic, Iain has also directed numerous documentaries on Celtic folklore and arts, and was series director of the BAFTA-winning show TACSI, which won Best Arts Series in the Scottish BAFTA’s and Best Entertainment Programme at the Celtic Film and Television Festival. Television includes Machair which won a Writers’

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Guild Award for Best Foreign Language Serial Drama. His work for theatre includes St Kilda (Gaelic Arts Agency), Broke, Homers, Alexander Salamander and Road from the Isles (Traverse Theatre), Salvage (Tosg Theatre Company) and Cliff Dancing (National Gaelic Youth Theatre). His work for BBC Radio 4 includes The Watergaw, The Gold Digger and an adaptation of Angela Carter's The Kitchen Child. Other radio includes Frozen and an adaptation of The Pearlfisher for BBC Radio Scotland. His film work includes The Inaccessible Pinnacle (Young Films). He is also the author of several novels.

Director Alex Marker has been Resident Designer of the Finborough Theatre since 2002 where his designs have included Charlie’s Wake (2001), The Women’s War (2003), How I Got That Story (2004), Soldiers (2004), Happy Family (2004), Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ (2005), Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams (2005), Albert’s Boy (2005), Lark Rise To Candleford (2005), Red Night (2005), The Representative (2006), Eden’s Empire (2006), Love Child (2007), Little Madam (2007), Plague Over England (and the 2009 West End transfer to the ) (2008), Hangover Square (2008), Sons of York (2008), Untitled (2009), Painting A Wall (2009), of Long Pig (2009), Moliere or The League of Hypocrites (2009) and Dream of the Dog (2010). He is also Director of the Questors Youth Theatre, the largest youth theatre in London. www.alexmarker.com _____

Wednesday, 2 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere The Punishment Stories by Anders Lustgarten. Directed by Zena Birch.

Big man jail, 2010. Jermaine is looking at a big lump. His co-defendant D is more concerned with chocolate biscuits and minor drug deals. But the pressure of their situation, and of coming to grips with what they did, is about to put their friendship under serious stress. Runner up for the Verity Bargate Award, The Punishment Stories is fast, funny and about something most prison dramas ignore: what it's like to be guilty. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 30 minutes.

Playwright Anders Lustgarten is Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre, where his first four plays were produced – The Insurgents (2007), a comic drama about Kurdish immigration and political resistance to globalisation; Enduring Freedom (2008), a powerful portrayal of the Bush years; A Torture Comedy, a satire on rendition and the War on Terror, was part of Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights (2009); and A Day at the Racists (2010), a timely examination of the rise of the BNP in London. He is taking his new play, You Cannot Escape Our Love, about Zimbabwe after Mugabe, to the Harare International Festival of Arts in April 2010. Anders is under commission to the Bolton Octagon, and from 2007-8, Anders was on attachment at the Soho Theatre. Other work includes an adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek’s The Police (BAC 2007). Anders works as a political activist; he has also taught on , been arrested by the Turkish secret police, and holds a PhD in Chinese politics from the University of California.

Director Zena Birch has worked extensively with devised, collaborative and site specific performance. As a director, she has worked at the National Theatre Studio, BAC, the Tristan Bates Theatre and the White Bear Theatre. She is also a company member of Station House Opera. _____

Thursday, 3 June 2010 at 9.00pm A triple bill of three short plays London Premiere/World Premiere Extra Ordinary and People by Laura Wade. Directed by Alexander Summers. and London Premiere Expecting by Alexandra Wood. Directed by Alexander Summers.

In People, a businesswoman finds herself floundering after one of her employees drops a bombshell. In Extra Ordinary, two women test the boundaries of their unconventional relationship.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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In Expecting, a woman goes to an anti-war protest and emerges sure of one thing only: expectation never bears any resemblance to reality. She then embarks on a life-long project designed to save the world from the worst that she can imagine… Total performance length of the triple bill: Approximately 1 hour.

Playwright Laura Wade was commissioned for the Finborough Theatre by Artistic Director Neil McPherson to write the world premiere of Young Emma in 2003 which marked her London debut. She has been a Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough since 2004. Her other plays include and Breathing Corpses (Royal Court Theatre), and Colder Than Here and Other Hands (Soho Theatre). Her awards include the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, the Pearson Best Play Award and the George Devine Award. Laura Wade’s plays have also been performed in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands.

Playwright Alexandra Wood was Literary Manager for the Finborough Theatre from 2006 to 2007 and is now a Playwright-in-Residence. Plays include The Eleventh Capital (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), The Lion’s Mouth (part of Rough Cuts at the Royal Court Theatre), Miles to Go (Latitude Festival) and Unbroken (Gate Theatre). In 2007, she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright. She is currently under commission to the . Expecting was originally commissioned by Rose Bruford College in 2009.

Director Alexander Summers was a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre for 2007 where he assisted on seven productions including Plague Over England (which transferred to the West End) and the Time Out Critics’ Choice production of Ours. At the Finborough Theatre, he has directed the world premieres of The Insurgents by Anders Lustgarten, The Blessing Way by Nirjay Mahindru and Death of Long Pig by . Most recently, he was Associate Director on Huck by James Graham (National Tour and Southwark Playhouse), Mother’s Ruin (24 Hour Plays at The Old Vic) and The Insect Play (’s Youth Company). He was Apprentice Director on Waiting for Godot (Theatre Royal Haymarket and National Tour). He has trained with Cheek by Jowl’s Summer School, assisted on Uncertainty (Latitude Festival) and led the Czech theatre retrospective, A Cautious Path (Tristan Bates Theatre). Other directing includes The Man Outside (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America (Contact Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing and The Man With The Flower in his Mouth (both at The ). _____

Friday, 4 June 2010 at 3.00pm. World Premiere The Voice of Scotland by David Hutchison. Directed by Blanche McIntyre.

Alec Campbell used to be a famous singer of Scottish popular music. No Hogmanay was complete without him, but now he finds himself out of date and forgotten as tastes have moved on. Alec, though, is convinced that he can still make a comeback. His daughter is an aspiring Nationalist Holyrood MSP anxious to be part of post-devolution Scotland in which she sees no place for the cosy view of the nation that her father represents… Performance length: Approximately 2 hours.

Playwright David Hutchison’s The Voice of Scotland was workshopped at the Finborough Theatre in 2006 with actor Kenny Ireland, directed by David Robb. He has also had plays workshopped at the Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow. He works in higher education and has written widely on media policy and the development of theatre in Scotland.

Director Blanche McIntyre was the first recipient of the Leverhulme Directors’ Bursary (a partnership between the National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre) and was Director in Residence during 2009 at both the National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre. She directed an acclaimed production of Bulgakov’s Molière or The League of Hypocrites at the Finborough Theatre in 2009 (Four Stars in Whatsonstage and The Guardian, and Critics' Choice in The Guardian). Directing includes Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita ( 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), A Model for Mankind (Cock Tavern), and Lost , The Invention of Love and Cressida (Edinburgh Festival). _____

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Friday, 4 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere The Soft of Her Palm by Christopher Dunkley. Directed by Tim Luscombe.

Sarah just crashed her car outside Phil’s flat. Her life is unravelling and he is to blame, but for now she just wants the Harry Potters. Phil, destitute and alone, is now forced to wear second-hand socks and anyway the Harry Potters belong to him. Journeying into their shared past, a complex, troubled relationship reveals itself, impacting on everyone involved including Stan, Sarah’s seven year old son. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 20 minutes.

Playwright Christopher Dunkley’s Mirita received its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre in 2002 where it was named Time Out Critics’ Choice and went on to play at the Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City, alongside his short play Lisa Says. His other plays include Almost Blue (), 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 BBC). Chris has been Writer in Residence at the Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton, where he is currently under commission, and a 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 Tim Luscombe directed Noël Coward’s first play, The Rat Trap, at the Finborough Theatre in 2006. He has directed extensively in the West End, on Broadway and all over the world. London directing credits include Noёl Coward’s Easy Virtue (Garrick Theatre) and Private Lives (), Artist Descending A Staircase (Duke of York’s Theatre), The Browning Version and Harlequinade (Royalty Theatre), EuroVision (Vaudeville Theatre) and Relative Values (). Tim is also well known as a playwright whose plays include EuroVision (Vaudeville Theatre), The One You Love (Royal Court Theatre), The Schuman Plan (Hampstead Theatre) and The Death of Gogol and the 1969 Eurovision Contest (The Drill Hall). Tim was nominated for an Olivier Award for his direction of Easy Virtue and The Browning Version and Harlequinade. He also ran a gay theatre company in London in the early 1990s. His production of A Lie of the Mind has just opened at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Little Hut, starring Janie Dee, is currently on a National Tour. _____

Saturday, 5 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Jugantor by Titas Halder. Directed by Michael Longhurst.

There are three women connected by blood and by history. Torn apart by a forgotten war, the family are forced together in the pursuit of reconciliation. As the women start to reconnect, the values and virtues of their freedom fighting heritage collide, and the spirits that haunt them break loose. Drawing from Hindu folk stories and superstition, Jugantor is a fierce comic drama about roots and redemption. Performance length: Approximately 2 hours 15 minutes.

Playwright Titas Halder is a former Literary Associate at the Finborough Theatre, following a spell as a Resident Assistant Director, where he directed Painting A Wall. As a playwright, he trained with the Royal Court Theatre's Critical Mass Programme. Jugantor is his first play. Titas is also currently Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse and a Creative Associate at the Bush Theatre.

Director Michael Longhurst directed Maori writer Albert Belz’ Awhi Tapu in last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights festival. Other directing includes 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 for Hampstead Theatre), The Death of Cool (Tristan Bates Theatre), New Voices: 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic), Gaudeamus (Arcola Theatre), Guardians (Pleasance Edinburgh, and Barbican Art Gallery), Cargo (Pleasance Edinburgh and Oval House Theatre), Doctor Faustus (Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham). Assistant Direction includes productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Court Theatre, Old Vic and Young Vic. Michael was a director attached to the 2009 International Residency at the Royal Court Theatre and will direct Midnight Your Time at the 2010

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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HighTide Festival. His awards include the Jerwood Directors Award, a Fringe First and a scholarship to the Central Film School where he directed his first short film Fog. His production of Stovepipe recently featured in The Sunday Times Theatre Events of the Decade list. _____

Sunday, 6 June 2010 at 7.30pm World Premiere by kind permission of the Bristol Old Vic Princess Caraboo A Musical in Development. Written and Directed by Phil Willmott. A sneak preview of Phil Willmott’s latest musical, commissioned by Bristol Old Vic for production in 2011, based on the true story of how an ingenious maid-servant fooled 19th century high society and passed herself off as a shipwrecked princess. Performance length: 2 hours. Playwright and Director Phil Willmott is Artistic Director of The Steam Industry and a previous Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre where he has staged more productions than any other director including acclaimed revivals of Pinero’s Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ and Country Magic, Galsworthy’s Loyalties, his new adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths (recently published by Oberon Books), Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin, and the sell-out F**king Men which transferred to the Kings Head and Arts Theatres, breaking records as London's longest running hit. His last original musical Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi won a TMA award for Best Musical in the UK, a WhatsOnStage award nomination and broke box office records at The Playhouse in Liverpool and the Union Theatre in London. It is published by Samuel French. Other musical adaptations, published and widely produced internationally, include Around the World in Eighty Days, The Dick Barton Trilogy, Treasure Island, Uncle Ebenezer – A Christmas Carol and Jason And The Argonauts. He is the most commissioned musical theatre writer in the UK. _____

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights WEEK THREE – 7 June–13 June 2010

Monday, 7 June 2010 at 7.30pm World Premiere The of Warsaw, Part I by Sarah Grochala. Directed by Stephen Keyworth.

“Anyone would think that the walls of this city were only built to shoot people against and the balconies to hang them from.” Warsaw. 1943. In a city under occupation, divided by race and faith, three women face two choices. Anna is ready to herself for her country. Agata is hoping to quietly wait the war out. Danuta, meanwhile, is searching for a third way. She wants to make the best she can out of a bad situation. But war has a funny way of turning both the most selfish and most selfless of intentions on their heads... Performance length: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Playwright Sarah Grochala’s play S-27 received its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre in 2009. It also won the first Protect the Human Playwriting Competition in 2007, run by iceandfire in conjunction with Amnesty International and Soho Theatre, and has just been produced in Sydney by the prestigious Griffin Theatre. Previous plays include Waiting For Romeo (Pleasance London, RADA and the Edinburgh Festival) which was chosen by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be presented as part of the celebrations marking the centenary of Ibsen’s death in 2006 and is currently in production in Poland. She has also written several short pieces for Theatre 503 including Remains, Viable Alternative and Covent Garden (Urban Scrawl). Sarah has recently been working with the Bush Theatre on their Baltic and Eastern European outreach programme.

Director Stephen Keyworth’s previous productions at the Finborough Theatre include Sarah Grochala’s S-27 and Jack Thorne’s Fanny and Faggot (which transferred to the West End), and – as writer – 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 with theatre, comedy and music including Damon Albarn, Jo Brand, and the National Theatre. He directed two of fourteen world premieres they commissioned and his adaptation of Rory Kilalea’s Zimbabwe Boy went on to be performed at the National Theatre. Other writing includes Mad For It (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, nominated Best New Play in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards), and several plays for Radio 4. As one of eight writers in the BBC’s 2006 Writers Academy, he has written for EastEnders, Casualty and Doctors. _____

Tuesday, 8 June 2010 at 9.00pm European Premiere Beating by Colleen Murphy. Directed by Daniel Burgess.

Leona and Danny's young daughter, Amelia, has been killed in a car crash. Travelling though dark emotional territory, unearthing humour and forgiveness, Danny and Leona fight to make sense of their tragedy. Daring and unsentimental, Beating Heart Cadaver was nominated for Canada’s most prestigious literary award, the Governor General’s Literary Award. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 20 minutes.

Playwright Colleen Murphy featured in last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights with The December Man (L’homme de décembre). Colleen was born in Quebec and grew up in Northern Ontario. Her plays include The Piper, Down in Adoration Falling, All Other Destinations are Cancelled and The December Man (L’homme de décembre) which won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the CAA/Carol Bolt Award for Drama and the 2006 Enbridge playRites Award. 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).

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Director Daniel Burgess is currently a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where he has worked on A Day at the Racists, Molière, or The League of Hypocrites, Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights and Too True To Be Good. _____

Wednesday, 9 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Barrow Hill by Jane Wainwright. Directed by Eleanor Rhode.

As the East Midlands struggle through the recession, the news that the old Barrow Hill chapel is to be converted into new flats for young professionals is a welcome relief – particularly for out of work builder Graham. But for 84 year old Kath, it’s her last tie to the world and she’s not going to give it up easily. A play about fighting to the death in a society that’s waiting for you to die. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 30 minutes.

Playwright Jane Wainwright is from . She developed Barrow Hill with the Finborough Theatre Literary Department in 2009. She has recently completed the Royal Court Theatre’s Invitation Playwrights course and has been invited to join their ‘SuperGroup’ of new playwrights. Her play Photos of You Sleeping was recently performed as part of Hampstead Theatre’s Start Night.

Director Eleanor Rhode is an Associate Artist and a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where she has directed both runs of Generous by Michael Healey and The December Man (L’homme de décembre) for last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. She was also Assistant Director on Trying and S-27. Other directing includes 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). As Associate Director, she has worked on Lie of The Land (Arcola Theatre), and as an Assistant Director on Lie of the Land (Pleasance Edinburgh), African Gothic (White Bear Theatre) and Terrorism (Oval House Theatre). _____

Thursday, 10 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Swamplands by Van Badham. Directed by Ben Kidd.

In 2002, Joseph Wilson was asked by the CIA to investigate intelligence reports that the African country of Niger had been selling yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Wilson discovered that no yellowcake had changed hands, and duly told this to the CIA and the Vice-President's office. Imagine Wilson's surprise, then, when the original yellowcake reports surfaced as the US and British governments' pretext for the invasion of Iraq... Employing an army of characters and a carousel of locations, Swamplands is an epic play about patriotism, terrorism and the abrogation of moral responsibility in the apparatus of the modern democratic state. Performance length: Approximately 2 hours.

Playwright Van Badham is the Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre where her play The Gabriels received its world premiere in 2006. It subsequently became the first play by an Australian writer to be selected for New York City's annual Summer Play Festival. Van is the award-winning writer of more than forty internationally-produced plays for stage, musical theatre and radio, and has just signed a three-book deal as a first-time novelist with Pan Macmillan Australia. She has had plays and musical theatre staged at seven Edinburgh Festivals, two Adelaide Festivals, in London at venues including the Royal Court Theatre, the Bush Theatre (for Paines Plough) and LAMDA (where she was Writer-in- Residence), on UK tour, and across her native Australia at venues including the Sydney Opera House and Victorian Arts Centre, and in the US, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. Her radio commissions have been for the BBC World Service, Radio 4 and Radio 3. Her first screenplay, We Come Home, received a 2007 development grant from the Australian Writers’ Guild. Her many awards include the Queensland Premier's Award for Drama, Best Playwright Award from Fringe Report, the Australian Theatre for Young People's Write Now! Award, the Jameson Award for Screenwriting and the first Short+Sweet International Festival of Short Plays Awards for both Best Comedy and Best Play.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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She is currently under commission to the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, after recently completing commissions for Merrigong in Australia and Bern Stadttheater, Switzerland.

Director Ben Kidd was a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre during 2008 and made his debut with an acclaimed rediscovery of the work of Nick Ward with Apart From George in 2009. He also directed Simon Vinnicombe’s Wisdom for last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. Trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His other directing includes Richard III (Riverside Studios), and Assistant Direction to Carrie Cracknell on I Am Falling (Gate Theatre), Edward Dick on (Shakespeare’s Globe) as well as working on the Young People’s Theatre scheme at BAC. He is a Finalist for the prestigious JMK Award 2010. _____

Friday, 11 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere Unburied by Peter Oswald. Directed by Adam Barnard.

The First World War has been going on for a hundred years. Prime Minister Dorothy Squires wants a Memorial in the Debating Chamber of the House of Commons made out of the plasticated corpse of a soldier killed in battle. Private Dafydd Lewis is looking for the body of his friend that's in the hands of the Government. We are all hanging on the old barbed wire… Performance length: Approximately 2 hours.

Playwright Peter Oswald is a previous Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre where his play Lucifer Saved received a staged reading in 2006 with Mark Rylance, Juliet Rylance and John McEnery and returned for its world premiere in 2007. He was a Writer-in-Residence at Shakespeare’s Globe where his plays The Storm, The Golden Ass and Augustine’s Oak were all produced. In 2005, his version of Schiller’s Mary Stuart, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, transferred to the West End after a sell-out run at the Donmar Warehouse. Other credits include The Odyssey and Shakuntala (Gate Theatre), The Ramayana (National Theatre and Birmingham Rep), Dona Rosita: The Spinster (Almeida), Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards (National Theatre), and Don Carlos (Lyric Studio Theatre, Hammersmith). Peter is currently performing with his wife Alice, Josephine Larsen and Martin Holland as part of The Attention Seekers.

Director Adam Barnard returns to the Finborough having directed the critically acclaimed European premiere of Patience by Jason Sherman in 2005 with his former company, Activated Image. Productions as director include Vasco, Three in The Back Two In The Head, The Little Years, O'Flaherty VC and Press Cuttings (, Richmond), The Swing of Things, Face Value, Pro-Active and White Lies (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough), Ordinary Dreams (Trafalgar Studios), Lie of the Land (Arcola Theatre), Look Back in Anger and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Garrick Theatre, Lichfield), You Were After Poetry (HighTide Festival), Future Perfect (Company of Angels at Soho Theatre), The Map Maker's Sorrow (Eklektisk Theater, Copenhagen), Rutherford and Son (), Lark Rise (Oxfordshire Museum), Stephen Fry's Latin! (King's Head Theatre) and many Edinburgh Festival productions including Amy Evans' Strike, The Straight Man and The Principle of Motion. He is currently developing a series of new productions including a project about Britain's most violent teenagers with Company of Angels, a new play The Company Man by Torben Betts for the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond in Autumn 2010, and his first foray into opera. _____

Saturday, 12 June 2010 at 9.00pm European Premiere Rock Paper Scissors by John A.D. Fraser. Directed by Eleanor Rhode.

Pat and Ronnie work the lighthouse at Muckle Flugga above the deep North Sea – neighbour to 46,000 gannets and 200,000 puffins. Vegetarian ex-student Dougie lands, the newest keeper of the light. But Dougie didn’t do lighthouse lore at Uni. So maybe his eyes will get pecked out by a bonxie, he'll be attacked by a basking shark, or Davy Jones may come calling. Meantime he’s got his hands full with Ronnie’s malevolence and Pat’s creepy homeliness. As the walls close in, they play ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to determine who is king for the day. Performance length: Approximately 75 minutes.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Playwright John A.D. Fraser was born in Scotland and is now based in Australia. Rock, Paper, Scissors premiered at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Sydney, in 2009, and was read at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of a residency for emerging international writers. It was then developed with Playwriting Australia at the National Script Workshop in Canberra before going to the first ever National Play Festival in Brisbane. His plays include The Last Great Roadhouse in Paradise (Old Fitzroy Theatre, Sydney) and Catch a Falling Knife which won three awards in 2009 and was subsequently produced in London, Sydney and Brisbane. He completed the NIDA Playwright’s Studio in 2005. Forthcoming writing includes Kick the Kaiser, a new play about Scottish footballers in the First World War.

Director Eleanor Rhode is an Associate Artist and a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where she has directed both runs of Generous by Michael Healey and The December Man (L’homme de décembre) for last year’s Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. She was also Assistant Director on Trying and S-27. Other directing includes 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). As Associate Director, she has worked on Lie of The Land (Arcola Theatre), and as an Assistant Director on Lie of the Land (Pleasance Edinburgh), African Gothic (White Bear Theatre) and Terrorism (Oval House Theatre). _____

Sunday, 13 June 2010 at 7.30pm English Premiere David Hume’s Kilt Or, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Scotland by Brian Logan. Directed by Rae Mcken.

“It is to Scotland that we look for our idea of civilisation” said the French philosopher Voltaire. What was he thinking?! David Hume’s Kilt is a comic fantasia about the Scottish Enlightenment, cultural identity and the battle between science and sentiment. Starring the philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, the novelist Sir Walter Scott and the Highlands’ very own Cruella de Vil, the Countess of Sutherland, the play depicts the most spectacular literary hoax of the 1700s, and the notorious jaunt north of King George IV for what might be called the first ever Edinburgh festival. It brings to tartan- clad life the tug-of-war between love and self-interest, kilt and trousers, and between intellectual, commercial Scotland and the romantic, shortbread-tin alternative. Written in the Scots language, David Hume’s Kilt was originally developed by John Tiffany at the National Theatre of Scotland, and then received a staged reading at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, directed by Dominic Hill. Performance length: 2 hours 15 minutes.

Playwright Brian Logan is a writer and theatre-maker. He is The Guardian’s comedy critic, ex-Assistant theatre editor of Time Out, and covers theatre and the arts for The Times, The Independent on Sunday and others. His play The Key to the Universe was runner-up in the Robert McLellan Award for plays in the Scots language; his work has also been developed and performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and the National Theatre of Scotland. He is a co-founder and performer with Cartoon de Salvo theatre company, whose shows include Meat and Two Veg (BAC and International Tour), the allotment-set site-specific event The Sunflower Plot (2005), and the improvised Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories (Lyric Hammersmith, British Council Showcase and tour). Brian’s work as a director includes Better Humans (BAC).

Director Rae Mcken directed the English premiere of Robert McLellan’s classic Scots language play, Jamie the Saxt, at the Finborough Theatre in 2007, and directed Tim Barlow in The War Plays, a double bill including Arthur Conan Doyle’s Waterloo, in 2005. She studied for her MA at Kings College, London and RADA, before taking part in the Directors’ Course at the National Theatre Studio. Rae was a recipient of the Channel 4 Regional Theatre Director’s Award and spent a year at Salisbury Playhouse as Resident Director where she assisted on several productions as well as directing Charlotte Jones’ play Airswimming. Other directing work includes Respect (Birmingham Rep), Origin Unknown (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Bedtime Story (Theatre 503), Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home (mac and National Tour) and Romeo and Juliet (Young Vic Studio). Rae has also worked as an Assistant Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre. _____

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

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Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights WEEK FOUR – 14 June–19 June 2010

Monday, 14 June 2010 at 7.30pm World Premiere What Shall We Do With Mother? – The Musical by Claire Dowie. Directed by Claire Dowie and Colin Watkeys.

A musical comedy set in Mel and Gabby's cabaret club where anything goes...well, until Gabby's ex-girlfriend, Jude, auditions for the show as an Elvis impersonator...and then there's the problem of what to do with Mel's Mother... Performance length: Approximately 1 hour.

Playwright and Co-Director Claire Dowie performed regularly as a stand up comedian at the Finborough Theatre in the early 1980’s for the Finborough Cabaret where she pioneered Stand Up Theatre and presented the world premieres of her first two multi-award winning plays Adult Child/Dead Child and Why Is John Lennon Wearing A Skirt? These plays continue to be produced regularly all over the world alongside later works including Death And Dancing, Leaking From Every Orifice, All Over Lovely, Easy Access and, most recently, H To He (I’m Turning Into A Man). Claire has also written for BBC radio and television drama including The Year Of The Monkey with Janet Suzman, and Mind The Gap with , Gwen Taylor, Dinah Stabb and Siân Phillips, while Came Out, It Rained, Went Back In Again – Claire`s first original film for television – featured Jane Horrocks and Gwen Taylor. As well as three collections of her plays, Methuen also published Claire’s first novel, Creating Chaos. Claire is currently developing her new theatre piece, Buy Little Buy Less Buy Nothing At All. www.clairedowie.co.uk

Co-Director Colin Watkeys returns to the Finborough Theatre where he was one of the most important figures in its early years. He founded and ran the Finborough Cabaret from 1982 to 1988 where he directed West End impresario Nica Burns in Dulcima, A Little Cabaret for Bertolt Brecht and A Strindberg Play, and presented the work of many comics, writers, musicians and dancers who are now household names including Jo Brand, Rory Bremner, Ken Campbell, Julian Clary, Claire Dowie, Jenny Eclair, Ainsley Harriott, John Hegley, Mark Lamarr, Mark Steel, Mark Thomas and Benjamin Zephaniah. Since then, he has produced and directed all of the theatre shows of the late Ken Campbell including The Recollections of a Furtive Nudist, Pigspurt, Jamais Vu and The History of Comedy (National Theatre), Mystery Bruises (), Theatre Stories (Royal Court Theatre), Meaning of Life and Hyphenator (The Drill Hall); and of Claire Dowie including Adult Child/Dead Child, Why Is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt?, Easy Access, Death and Dancing, Leaking from Every Orifice, All Over Lovely, The Year of the Monkey, Creating Chaos, H To He (I’m Turning Into A Man) and, most recently, Buy Little Buy Less Buy Nothing At All. _____

Tuesday, 15 June 2010 at 9.00pm European Premiere Mine by Bekah Brunstetter. Directed by Ellie Browning.

Annie, a poet with no time for poems, is caught between her wonderful, successful boyfriend and her magnetic, brokeass, aspiring musician, coffee shop co-worker. Set to the addictive, rollicking tunes of acclaimed singer-songwriter Joe Pug's Nation of Heat EP, Mine is a sharp-witted drama exploring love, identity, and the fine line between loving someone and getting what you want. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 15 minutes

Playwright Bekah Brunstetter is a Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre and received her UK debut at the Finborough Theatre in 2009 with Oohrah! (which also recently received its US premiere at the Atlantic Theater, New York City). Her work was featured in Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights in 2009 with Green, while the European premiere of You May Go Now – A Marriage Play was produced at the Finborough Theatre in March 2010. Bekah was also Resident Playwright of Ars Nova (NYC) in 2009, and a member of the Women’s Project Writers Lab, and the Primary Stages Writer’s Group. She is twice winner of the New York Innovative Theater Award for Best Original Full-Length Play and twice winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival. Her work has received acclaim across the United States and has been produced and developed by at Boston Theatre Works, the Ohio Theater, The Alliance Theatre, Aurora Stage

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 18 and many others. Her other plays include To Nineveh (New York Innovative Theater Award for Best New Full Length Play 2006), Sick (Winner, Samuel French Short Play Festival 2006), Fucking Art (Winner, Samuel French Short Play Festival 2008) and Avocado (King’s Head Theatre). She is currently working on commissions for Naked Angels, Ars Nova and the Roundabout. www.bekahbrunstetter.com

Director Ellie Browning directed Bekah Brunstetter’s You May Go Now – A Marriage Play at the Finborough Theatre in March 2010. She is a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where she has worked on Untitled, The Killing of Mr Toad and Death of Long Pig. _____

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere The Stock Da’wa by David Eldridge. Directed by Jo McInnes.

It’s nearly midnight and Joan is in her dressing gown, having fallen out of bed, Mr Wilson is in his boxer shorts and Paul, Paul they haven't seen in twenty years and he has blood on his nose and shirt. Performance length: Approximately 2 hours.

Playwright David Eldridge had two plays produced at the Finborough Theatre in 1995 – A Week With Tony and Fighting for Breath. His many other plays include Babylone (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry), John Gabriel Borkman, The Wild Duck, Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse), Market Boy (National Theatre), Festen (Almeida Theatre), Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness, Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court Theatre), MAD, Serving it Up (Bush Theatre), Falling (Hampstead Theatre), Thanks Mum (BAC), Dirty (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Cabbage for, Tea, Tea, Tea! (University of Exeter). Television includes Killers and Our Hidden Lives (BBC). Short Films include The Nugget Run. Radio includes Michael and Me, Stratford, Ilford, Romford and All Stations to Shenfield, Feste and The Picture Man (BBC). Publications include Serving It Up, A Week with Tony, Under the Blue Sky, Festen, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness, David Eldridge Plays One, The Wild Duck and John Gabriel Borkman (Methuen Drama). Awards include the Time Out Live Award in 2001 for Best New Play in the West End for Under the Blue Sky, the Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play in 2005 for Festen, the Prix Europa Best European Radio Drama in 2008 for The Picture Man and the Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play in 2009 for Under the Blue Sky. Forthcoming productions include A Thousand Stars Explode In The Sky, co-written with Robert Holman and at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in May 2010. David is currently under commission to the Almeida Theatre, BBC Radio, Headlong Theatre Company and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. In July 2007, the University of Exeter honoured his work in the theatre and as a playwright by making him a Doctor of Letters. He is Honorary Fellow in Drama at the University of Exeter.

Director Jo McInnes’ credits include Marine Parade (Brighton Festival), Christmas (Bush Theatre and Brighton Dome) and Tape (New Venture Theatre, Brighton). Film includes Pornography (Channel Four) which was selected as one of the 2009 Coming Up Finalists. Television includes The Verdict. In 2002, Jo founded her own company, APE, and directed her first play, Tape. Jo has since directed workshops at the Royal Court Theatre, The Old Vic and the National Theatre. _____

Thursday, 17 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere To Keep the Awake by Nicholas de Jongh. Directed by Nick Philippou.

A 49 year old man returns to the therapist he has not seen for two years and asks her to help him deal with something that happened to him when he was 16 and about which he has never spoken to anyone. Memories from this past life have suddenly begun to return to him, trailing clouds of grief, anger and regret. Can anything be done to help him understand what really happened in his past and why it appears to have had such an overwhelming but unacknowleged impact on his life? Performance length: Approximately 2 hours.

Playwright Nicholas de Jongh’s Plague Over England received its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre in 2008. It was produced in the West End in 2009 by Bill Kenwright and the and was optioned for film

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 19 production. The script is published by Samuel French Limited. Nicholas was theatre critic of The Evening Standard from 1991 to 2008 and was previously arts correspondent and deputy theatre critic for The Guardian. His books include Not in Front of the Audience, a history of homosexuality on stage, and Politics, Pruderies and Perversions, a history of theatre censorship in the UK, which won the Society of Theatre Research Prize in 2001. He wrote a dramatisation of the twentieth century history of this censorship which was given a performance at the Royal Court Theatre during their fiftieth anniversary season. He also contributed a one act play about AIDS to the Royal Court's May Days season in 1991.

Director Nick Philippou was Artistic Director of the internationally acclaimed Actors Touring Company from 1993 to 2000. From 2001 to 2008, he lived and worked in New York City where his work included The Booth Variations (59e59, New York, and The Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Festival), the English language premiere of Elle by Jean Genet (The Art Party at the Zipper Theatre), Tartuffe and The History of Tears (NYU). He also made a short film in New York entitled Kleopatra. He has directed world premieres of work by , Mark Ravenhill, Paul Godfrey and Michael Wynne, and enjoyed a long working relationship with the late Kenneth McLeish whose translations for Nick include Ion, Herakles, The Belle Vue, Orpheus and Miss Julie. www.nickphilippou.com _____

Friday, 18 June 2010 at 3.00pm London Premiere The Demon Box by Steve Hennessy. Directed by Chris Loveless.

1872. Inside Broadmoor. Inside the black box of the theatre. Inside the head of Richard Dadd. On a trip to Egypt, the great Victorian artist Richard Dadd believed that he had been contacted by the god Osiris. Upon his return, at the god’s bidding, he murdered his father. He spent the rest of his life in Bethlem and Broadmoor. While there, he spent nine years working on his eerie masterpiece The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke. In 1872, he was given the job of renovating the theatre at Broadmoor... Welcome to the Demon Box. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour 5 minutes.

Playwright Steve Hennessy was Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre from 2004-2006 where his double bill Lullabies of Broadmoor – including The Club, commissioned by the Finborough Theatre and inspired by the Finborough Road murder of 1922 – received its London premiere in 2004 (“Absorbing and atmospheric…casts a haunting spell” Paul Taylor, The Independent). The Demon Box is the third in the Broadmoor sequence. The fourth and final part The Venus of Broadmoor will be produced in Bristol in November. He has had twenty plays staged in Bristol and London and four radio plays broadcast in Britain and Ireland. His play Still Life won the Venue Magazine Best New Play Award, while last year’s production of Moonshadow (White Bear Theatre) was a Time Out Critics' Choice.

Director Chris Loveless trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He is Artistic Director of Fallen Angel Theatre Company and an Associate Director of the White Bear Theatre and Stepping Out Theatre Company. Directing includes Normal (Tobacco Factory), Gifted, Moonshadow, Dracula, The Custom of the Country (all White Bear Theatre), Ray Collins Dies On Stage, Thursday Coma, Walter’s Monkey (all Alma Theatre, Bristol) and Blavatsky’s Tower (). Assistant Direction includes Othello (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory) and The Demon Box (Alma Theatre, Bristol). Later this year, Chris will be directing the world premiere of a musical adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day at the Union Theatre. www.chrisloveless.com _____

Friday, 18 June 2010 at 9.00pm World Premiere And I And Silence by Naomi Wallace. Directed by Caitlin McLeod.

Jamie doesn't like Dee and they both don't like being in jail. But as time passes, these teenagers forge a plan. And they've got to practice hard, because if they don't get it right, they'll lose everything: the outside is even more dangerous to their friendship than the inside. Exploring the fierce dreams of youth and the brutal reality of adulthood in 1950's segregated America, And I and Silence is a dark, often humorous portrait of desire and daring. Performance length: Approximately 80 minutes.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 20

Playwright Naomi Wallace's first play, The War Boys, was produced at the Finborough Theatre in 1993. Her work has been produced in the , Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Her major plays include One Flea Spare, In the Heart of America, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Things of Dry Hours and The Fever Chart: Three Short Visions of the Middle East. Her work has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kesselring Prize, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, and an Obie. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. Her award-winning film Lawn Dogs is available on DVD. Her new film, The War Boys, co-written with Bruce McLeod, will be released in 2010. Wallace is writing new plays for the Public Theatre, New York, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Clean Break of London. One Flea Spare was recently incorporated into the repertoire of La Comédie-Française.

Director Caitlin McLeod directed One Short Sleepe (2009) at the Literary Festival and the UK premiere of Elephant's Graveyard (Warwick Arts Centre) which went on to win three awards at the National Student Drama Festival including the Buzz Goodbody Best Director Award. Assistant Direction includes working with the National Student Drama Festival ensemble on Touched (North Wall Theatre, Oxford and Latitude Festival). _____

Saturday, 19 June 2010 at 9.00pm European Premiere The Delicate Lines by Aram Kouyoumdjian. Directed by John Kachoyan.

The Armenian genocide of 1915 was the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government against the Armenians. 1.5 million people died. The Delicate Lines follows the story of an Armenian woman in the aftermath of the genocide as she struggles with her poet brother’s descent into madness and with her conflicted love for his best friend. It received its world premiere at California Stage, where it played to capacity audiences and captured an Elly Award nomination for Best Original Script from the Sacramento Area Regional Theater Alliance, prior to sold-out runs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Performance length: Approximately 1 hour.

Playwright Aram Kouyoumdjian’s Protest was presented at the Finborough Theatre in 2005. He is the winner of Elly Awards for both playwriting (The Farewells) and directing (Three Hotels), Kouyoumdjian co-founded and served as Artistic Director of Vista Players, hailed as a “boundlessly talented” ensemble that “set the standard by which others were judged” (Sacramento News and Review). Recent writing credits include the collaborative script for Little Armenia, commissioned and staged by the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, and the forthcoming Velvet Revolution.

Director John Kachoyan is currently a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where he assisted on The Notebook of Trigorin and directed His Greatness. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney. Directing in the UK includes La Dispute (Soho Theatre, Old Red Lion Theatre and Edinburgh Festival) and Lilly, Alta (Bridewell Theatre). International directing includes the Australian premieres of Never Swim Alone and This Is A Play (Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney), White Biting Dog (Hart House Theatre, Toronto) and The Soldier Dreams (Cellar Theatre, Sydney). He was Artistic Director at the Redshift Design Group for three years, directing new Australian works such as Fresh Food People (Newtown Theatre, Sydney) and Lighthouse (The Edge Theatre, Sydney). Assistant Direction includes The Berry Man and Hypatia (Theatre Royal, Hobart), and the 2009 National Play Festival with PlayWriting Australia. He has also tutored at the Central School of Speech and Drama and The University of Sydney. In London, John co-runs A Play and A Pint, a monthly evening of new Australian play evenings.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 21

LISTINGS INFORMATION Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights Finborough Theatre, The Finborough, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk 25 May – 19 June 2010

The Man plays Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm, Saturday Matinees at 3.00pm (from 5 June 2010) and Sunday Matinees at 3.00pm. Prices for Weeks 1 and 2 (25 May–6 June) – Tickets £13, £9 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £9 all seats, and Saturday evenings £13 all seats. Previews (25 and 26 May) £9 all seats. £5 tickets for Under 30’s for performances from Tuesday to Sunday of the first week when booked online only. £10 tickets for residents of the Royal Borough of and Chelsea on Saturday, 29 May 2010 when booked online. Prices for Weeks 3 and 4 (8–19 June) – Tickets £15, £11 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £11 all seats, and Saturday evenings £15 all seats. _____

Staged readings for Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights play Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 9.00pm, Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm, and Friday Matinees on 28 May, 4 and 18 June at 3.00pm Prices for all Vibrant – An Anniversary Festival of Finborough Playwrights staged readings – all seats £4

WEEK ONE – 26 May-31 May 2010 Wednesday, 26 May 2010 (9.00pm) – Bull by Mike Bartlett. Directed by Clare Lizzimore. Thursday, 27 May 2010 (9.00pm) – Seven Pages Unsigned by Michael Louis Wells. Directed by Wilson Milam. Friday, 28 May 2010 (3.00pm) – Some Stories by Alistair McDowall. Directed by Clive Judd. Friday, 28 May 2010 (9.00pm) – Adam Lives in Theory by Nick Payne. Directed by Adam Lenson. Saturday, 29 May 2010 (9.00pm) – Beginning at the Finborough… Mark Ravenhill in conversation with Van Badham. Sunday, 30 May 2010 (7.30pm) – Make Me A Martyr by Simon Vinnicombe. Directed by Robert Wolstenholme.

WEEK TWO – 31 May-6 June 2010 Monday, 31 May 2010 (7.30pm) – Lights in the Sky by Joy Wilkinson. Directed by Helen Eastman. Tuesday, 1 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Atman by Iain Finlay MacLeod. Directed by Alex Marker. Wednesday, 2 June 2010 (9.00pm) – The Punishment Stories by Anders Lustgarten. Directed by Zena Birch. Thursday, 3 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Extra Ordinary and People by Laura Wade, and Expecting by Alexandra Wood. Directed by Alexander Summers. Friday, 4 June 2010 (3.00pm) – The Voice of Scotland by David Hutchison. Directed by Blanche McIntyre. Friday, 4 June 2010 (9.00pm) – The Soft of Her Palm by Christopher Dunkley. Directed by Tim Luscombe. Saturday, 5 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Jugantor by Titas Halder. Directed by Michael Longhurst. Sunday, 6 June 2010 (7.30pm) – Princess Caraboo. Written and Directed by Phil Willmott.

WEEK THREE – 7-13 June 2010 Monday, 7 June 2010 (7.30pm) – The Martyrs of Warsaw, Part I by Sarah Grochala. Directed by Stephen Keyworth. Tuesday, 8 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Beating Heart Cadaver by Colleen Murphy. Directed by Daniel Burgess. Wednesday, 9 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Barrow Hill by Jane Wainwright. Directed by Eleanor Rhode. Thursday, 10 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Swamplands by Van Badham. Directed by Ben Kidd. Friday, 11 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Unburied by Peter Oswald. Directed by Adam Barnard. Saturday, 12 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Rock Paper Scissors by John A.D. Fraser. Directed by Eleanor Rhode. Sunday, 13 June 2010 (7.30pm) – David Hume’s Kilt Or, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Scotland by Brian Logan. Directed by Rae Mcken.

WEEK FOUR – 14 June-19 June 2010 Monday, 14 June 2010 (7.30pm) – What Shall We Do With Mother? – The Musical by Claire Dowie. Directed by Claire Dowie and Colin Watkeys. Tuesday, 15 June 2010 (9.00pm) – Mine by Bekah Brunstetter. Directed by Ellie Browning. Wednesday, 16 June 2010 (9.00pm) – The Stock Da’wa by David Eldridge. Directed by Jo McInnes Thursday, 17 June 2010 (9.00pm) – To Keep the Ghost Awake by Nicholas de Jongh. Directed by Nick Philippou.

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.

Press Information 22

Friday, 18 June 2010 (3.00pm) – The Demon Box by Steve Hennessy. Directed by Chris Loveless. Friday, 18 June 2010 (9.00pm) – And I And Silence by Naomi Wallace. Directed by Caitlin McLeod. Saturday, 19 June 2010 (9.00pm) – The Delicate Lines by Aram Kouyoumdjian. Directed by John Kachoyan.

For more information, interviews and images, please contact Neil McPherson on e-mail [email protected] or 07977 173135 or Susie Safavi on e-mail [email protected] or 07875277913 Press releases and images to download are available at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/pressresources.htm

118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Telephone +44 (0)20 7244 7439 Fax +44 (0)20 7835 1853 e-mail [email protected] www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Artistic Director Neil McPherson

The Finborough Theatre is managed by The Steam Industry. Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3448268. Registered Charity no. 1071304. Registered address: 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED. A member of the Independent Theatre Council.