PRESS RELEASE – Monday 30th September PAINES PLOUGH ANNOUNCE ANNIVERSARY GALA TO CELEBRATE A DECADE OF COME TO WHERE I’M FROM AND A TRANSFER OF SAM STEINER’S YOU STUPID DARKNESS! TO SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE, A CO-PRODUCTION WITH THEATRE ROYAL PLYMOUTH IMAGES CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE www.painesplough.com / @painesplough /#PP2019 / Theatre. Everywhere. Paines Plough have today announced a special one-off event at the Criterion Theatre on 18th November and a transfer of Sam Steiner’s YOU STUPID DARKNESS! to Southwark Playhouse, a co-production with Theatre Royal Plymouth. The announcements mark the final programming from former co-Artistic Directors James Grieve and George Perrin. Charlotte Bennett and Katie Posner are set to announce their new season for the company on Friday 4 October. The one-off event at the Criterion Theatre on 18th November to celebrate 10 years of COME TO WHERE I’M FROM, their nationwide live and digital project which sees playwrights from across the country pen plays about the places they call home. The event will star some of the nation’s leading playwrights performing their own plays about the communities and times that have shaped them. With more to be announced, writers performing on the night include: James Graham, , April De Angelis, , Roy Williams, Zia Ahmed and Chloë Moss. The event, in celebration of Paines Plough’s history of discovering and developing talented writers from across the country, aims to raise £25,000 to invest in to the next generation of playwrights. Tickets are now on sale. Since 2010, Paines Plough’s nationwide project Come To Where I’m From has seen over 160 playwrights from across the country write about the places they call home. Each play is performed for one-night only and then becomes part of the free Come To Where I’m From smartphone app which houses all the mini-plays that have been performed since the project began to create a vivid patchwork quilt of accents, experiences and impressions of the UK.

The app is free to download from the Apple Store and Google Play. The 160-strong audio play library includes a huge range of playwrights, from Olivier Award winners to first timers. Recent additions include: Alice Birch, Mike Bartlett, Roy Williams, Vinay Patel and Lizzie Nunnery.

Paines Plough also announced today that Sam Steiner’s YOU STUPID DARKNESS! will run at Southwark Playhouse from 16 January – 22 February with a Press Night on Monday 20 January. An urgent play from Sam Steiner about the struggle for optimism and community amid the chaos of a collapsing world, the show opened with co-producer Theatre Royal Plymouth earlier this year. The production is directed by former Paines Plough co-Artistic Director James Grieve.

“I just think it’s, you know, important to look at the good things that are happening as well.”

Everything’s been falling apart for a while now. In a cramped, crumbling office four volunteers spend a few hours every Tuesday night on the phone to strangers telling them everything is going to be ok. As the outside world disintegrates around them, Frances, Joey, Angie and Jon teeter on the edge of their own personal catastrophes. Their hopes and fears become entangled as they try, desperately, to connect with the callers and with each other.

Details of Paines Plough’s Programme 2019 can be found here.

James Graham is from Mansfield and is an Olivier and Tony Award nominated writer. Credits include , and THE ANGRY BRIGADE, as well as the book of the Broadway musical FINDING NEVERLAND and numerous film and TV projects including Brexit: The Uncivil War starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Dennis Kelly grew up in Barnet and is an internationally celebrates playwright. Credits include , ORPHANS, UTOPIA and most recently GIRLS & BOYSstarring Carey Mulligan at the .

April De Angelis is a West London writer of Sicilian descent whose 30-year career highlights include JUMPY, WILD EAST and PLAYHOUSE CREATURES as well as an adaptation of Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND due to transfer to the National Theatre.

Simon Stephens hails from Stockport and is the renowned author of over 15 major plays, including THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME, HEISENBERG and SEA WALL starring Andrew Scott.

Roy Williams OBE grew up in Notting Hill, London, and is an Olivier and BAFTA award- winning playwright. His most celebrated plays include LIFT OFF, CLUBLAND, OFFSIDE and most recently SUCKER PUNCH. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008 and sits on the board of trustees for Theatre Centre. In 2018, he was a made a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. Zia Ahmed is a poet from North West London and is a London Laureate and former Roundhouse Poetry Slam champion. His debut play I WANNA BE YOURS was first produced by Paines Plough in 2018, and will be going on a national tour in autumn 2019, finishing with a five-week run at the Bush Theatre.

Chloë Moss is a Liverpudlian playwright whose work includes HOW LOVE IS SPELT, THE GATEKEEPER and THIS WIDE NIGHT which transferred to New York with actress Edie Falco and for which she was awarded the Susan Smith Blackburn Playwriting Prize.

Sam is a playwright and screenwriter from Manchester. His debut play, the award-wining LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS, was first produced by Walrus Theatre (a company he co-founded), and has subsequently been performed all over the world, in eight different languages. Since then Sam’s work on stage has included KANYE THE FIRST (HighTide) and most recently A TABLE TENNIS PLAY (Walrus Theatre) at the Edinburgh Fringe. Other pieces of Sam’s work have been showcased at the Royal Exchange, Soho, Southwark Playhouse, Sala Beckett in Barcelona, and the Cannes and London Film Festivals. He completed an attachment at Paines Plough as their Playwright Fellow and holds an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film and Television School. Sam is currently under commission at Paines Plough, and developing television and film projects with Euston North and Sunny March. James Grieve was Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough 2010-2019. He was formerly co- founder and Artistic Director of nabokov, and Associate Director of The Bush Theatre.

His forthcoming work includes GOD’S DICE by David Baddiel starring Alan Davies at Soho Theatre and a new production of CABARET for Gothenburg Opera in Sweden.

James’ directing credits for Paines Plough include YOU STUPID DARKNESS! by Sam Steiner, POP MUSIC by Anna Jordan, OUT OF LOVE by Elinor Cook, BLACK MOUNTAIN by Brad Birch, HOW TO BE A KID by Sarah McDonald-Hughes, THE ANGRY BRIGADE by James Graham, BROKEN BISCUITS and JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS by Tom Wells, HOPELESSLY DEVOTED and WASTED by Kate Tempest, AN INTERVENTION and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE by Mike Bartlett, FLY ME TO THE MOON by Marie Jones, TINY VOLCANOES by Laurence Wilson, YOU CANNOT GO FORWARD FROM WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW by David Watson, THE SOUND OF HEAVY RAIN by Penelope Skinner and HAPPINESS by Nick Payne for BBC Radio 3.

Further credits include the new musical THE ASSASSINATION OF KATIE HOPKINS (Theatr Clwyd - Winner Best Musical Production, UK Theatre Awards 2018), a new production of LES MISERABLES for Wermland Opera in Karlstad, Sweden, TRANSLATIONS (Sheffield Theatres / ETT / Rose – Winner Best Production, UK Theatre Awards 2014), 66 BOOKS: A NOBODY by Laura Dockrill, THE WHISKY TASTER by James Graham, ST PETERSBURG by Declan Feenan and PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY by Lucy Kirkwood (The Bush), ARTEFACTS by Mike Bartlett (nabokov/The Bush, National Tour & Off-Broadway); KITCHEN, BEDTIME FOR BASTARDS and NIKOLINA by Van Badham (nabokov), and the world premieres of OLD STREET by Patrick Marber (nabokov Arts Club) and THE LIST by David Eldridge (Arcola).

-ENDS- For further information about Paines Plough please contact Maisie Lawrence at The Corner Shop PR: [email protected] / 0207 831 7657

LISTINGS

COME TO WHERE I’M FROM Monday 18th November, 7pm The Criterion Theatre 18-223 Piccadilly, St. James's, London W1V 9LB Tickets from £10 www.criteriontheatre.co.uk #CTWIFGala

YOU STUPID DARKNESS! 16th January - 22nd February Southwark Playhouse 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD Mondays – Saturdays, Tuesday and Saturday Matinees. Tickets from £14 http://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk Press Night: Monday 20th January #YOUSTUPIDDARKNESS!

ABOUT PAINES PLOUGH

"The lifeblood of the UK’s theatre ecosystem." The Guardian

Paines Plough was formed in 1974 over a pint of Paines Bitter in the Plough pub. Since then we’ve produced more than 150 new productions by world renowned playwrights like Stephen Jeffreys, , Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Dennis Kelly, Mike Bartlett, Kate Tempest and Vinay Patel. We’ve toured those plays to hundreds of places from Bristol to Belfast to Brisbane.

"That noble company Paines Plough, de facto national theatre of new writing." The Daily Telegraph

In the past three years we’ve produced 30 shows and performed them in over 200 places across four continents. We tour to more than 30,000 people a year from Cornwall to the Orkney Islands; in village halls and Off-Broadway, at music festivals and student unions, online and on radio, and in our own pop-up theatre ROUNDABOUT. Our Programme 2019 premieres the best new British plays on tour the length and breadth of the UK in theatres, clubs and pubs everywhere from city centres to seaside towns. ROUNDABOUT hosts a jam-packed Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme and brings mini-festivals to each stop on its nationwide tour. Our COME TO WHERE I’M FROM app features 180 short audio plays available to download free from the App Store and GooglePlay.

"I think some theatre just saved my life." @kate_clement on Twitter

www.painesplough.com @PainesPlough www.facebook.com/painesploughHQ

ABOUT THEATRE ROYAL PLYMOUTH

Theatre Royal Plymouth is a registered charity providing art, education and community engagement throughout Plymouth and the wider region. We engage and inspire many communities through performing arts and we aim to touch the lives and interests of people from all backgrounds. We do this by creating and presenting a breadth of shows on a range of scales, with our extensive creative engagement programmes, by embracing the vitality of new talent and supporting emerging and established artists, and by collaborating with a range of partners to provide dynamic cultural leadership for the city of Plymouth.

Recent productions and co-productions include God Of Chaos by Phil Porter, The Kneebone Cadillac by Carl Grose, You Stupid Darkness! by Sam Steiner (with Paines Plough) and The Unreturning by Anna Jordan (with Frantic Assembly).

TRP has a strong track record of presenting and producing international work from companies and artists including Ontroerend Goed, Big In Belgium at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Robert Lepage and the late Yukio Ninagawa. In March 2019 TRP unveiled Messenger, the UK’s largest bronze sculpture created by the artist Joseph Hillier.