Scavengers

The second new play (out of four) under our spotlight is 'Scavengers' by Davey Anderson and directed by Claire Moyer.  The group have been selected to go to Beijing in a few weeks time to perform at a student theatre festival - very exciting!  Here's a little bit about the play:

The credit bubble has burst and Michael Findlater, property developer and entrepreneur, stands on the brink of financial ruin. Then one day he goes missing leaving his family behind. Sometime later, a group of scavengers climb through the window of an empty building and discover a lost man squatting among the debris.

Part absurd comedy, part mythical yarn, Scavengers tells the story of one man’s disappearance between the cracks of society, his attempt to survive off the scraps of the consumer economy, and his quest to rediscover who he is and where he belongs.

Tickets are now available from the venues for the new plays at the Tron and the Cockpit but not quite at The Traverse yet - they're too busy with festival stuff right now! We shall be looking at the two other new plays in the near future, but for a sneak preview of 'The Bends' by Iain F Macleod - just follow this link to their blog.

Mother Maria

We are now day 3 into rehearsals for our plays of new writing,  it has been really exciting to finally get started on them after such a long development process.  Over the next few days we shall be looking at each play and letting you know a little bit more about them.  To start us off we have 'Mother Maria', written by Ann Marie Di Mambro and directed by Andrew McGregor.

First of all, this has nothing to do with the Sound of Music, but it is about a nun!  An amazing nun. A nun who's story is so extraordinary that it sounds like the work of a hollywood script writer, but the story that we tell in this play is all based on the life and times of Maria Skobtsova (read her story here).  She is a fantastic character, not only in her achievements but also in her idiosyncrasies; she would regularly be spotted sitting outside Paris cafes smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer!

The play is set in France in the late 1930's and ends in 1944.  It follows a few individuals and their particular circumstances during the earth-shattering events of that troubled time. Di Mambro has mainly focused on the family life of Maria and the sacrifices that she makes.  She is an incredibly strong woman and will not allow anything to stop her following the path that she believes she has to go down, despite her husband, Daniel's best efforts.

The play features India Crawford as Mother Maria and Pola Anton as her care-free sister Sasha - there are some lovely scenes between the two sisters where it seems, just for a little moment, the troubles of the world are forgotten.  Andy Patterson plays Daniel Skobtsova and Kevin Leask plays his son Yuri as well as Mother Maria's confidant Father Demitri.  He's not the only actor who will have to portray two characters with Pamela Reid facing the challenge of playing the 16 year old Gaina, daughter of Maria and Daniel, as well as the constantly put-upon nun Sister Veronica.

'Mother Maria' is an exceptionally dramatic story and we can't wait to keep on working at it and discover more about this fantastic woman and those that surrounded her.  The group have been keeping their own blog which you can find here and you can see photos from their rehearsals here.

From the Old to the New....

Last week saw us finally finishing our work on The Wars of The Roses project.  We performed the three plays in Glasgow's beautiful Botanic gardens, being in Scotland it was obviously rained off for two nights but we still got a great audience coming along and appreciating the plays on Saturday morning! 

Putting the plays back up again, in such a different setting,  was a great chance to revisit the work, build on what we had already been doing and to try some new things out, all in all it turned out to be a very successful remount as you can see from our beaming smiles!

Having lived in Shakespeare land for so long we are all really really really really excited about getting started on our new plays next week.  These have been in development since near the start of the course and saw each director being teamed up with a top Scottish playwright.  The plays to be performed are The Bends by Iain F Macleod, liberty equality fraternity by Pamela Carter, Mother Maria by Ann Marie Di Mambro and Scavengers by Davey Anderson.  

We will be showing the progress of these plays right here on the blog over the next month or so, you can catch the plays at the Tron in Glasgow from 31st August-3rd September, The Cockpit in London on  7th-8th September and then finally in Edinburgh's Traverse from the 14th-17th of September.  For more details of what is on when then checkout our website.