Two new plays premiered at the festival, performed in the Studio Theatre at The Other Place.
Myth by Kirsty Housley and Matt Hartley
The plot:
A play about the things we don’t want to see or say.
Sarah has news, but her partner, George, is too busy to listen. They’ve just bought their first home, but Sarah’s commute is now so long that she may as well turn around and head straight back to work. Worst of all, the local shop doesn’t even stock decent wine, let alone wine that’s been in the fridge. It’s a full-blown booze crisis.
But George has a surprise…. He’s invited Laura and Tom around for dinner. Sarah hasn’t seen Laura since behaving disgracefully at Laura’s daughter’s second birthday party and, as the wine flows, their civilised dinner party descends into drunken truths. Finally, the chaos of the world can’t be kept outside any longer.
Sarah has a big decision to make. Friendships come into question and their lives may be irreparably changed. Can they continue? Or is this the end?
Cast:
Rebecca Humphries - Sarah
Lena Kaur - Laura
Thomas Magnussen - Tom
Fehinti Balogun - George
Creatives:
Director - Kirsty Housley
Designer - Rosanna Vize
Lighting - Jonathan Laidlow
Music - Sarah Llewellyn
Sound - Steven Atkinson
Movement - Naomi Said
THE EARTHWORKS by Tom Morton Smith:
The plot:
It's the twilight hours on the morning of 23 November 2009 in a hotel in Geneva. Clare can't sleep. In the hotel bar, she finds a young man, Fritjof, and is determined to buy him a drink.
She's married, so is he. She's just making small talk, she says.
They are here to witness a historic scientific breakthrough: tomorrow, CERN will switch on the Hadron Collider.
Clare is a journalist who is tired of copying and pasting endless press releases. Fritjof, it turns out, is a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, and his hotel room is next to Peter Higgs, the scientist who has theorised the existence of the so-called 'God particle'.
Clare's on an assignment as the science correspondent for a broadsheet and she's got writer's block. Fritjof has something strange and ethereal in his pocket that seems to emanate light.
Clare and Fritjof begin to make discoveries about their own lives through the prism of particle physics, wine and custard.
Cast:
Rebecca Humphries - Herta
Lena Kaur - Clare
Thomas Magnussen - Fritjof
Creatives:
Director - Erica Whyman
Designer - Rosanna Vize
Lighting - Mark Tolan
Music - Sarah Llewellyn
Sound - Steven Atkinson