Newcastle's Live Theatre, which won last year's Peggy Ramsay Award
for New Writing, is presenting a whole range of new writing and events
aimed at playwrights during June. Most are "Pay What You Like",
unless otherwise stated:
Friday 4 June 8pm
Who Killed the Michelin Man?
Written by Joe Caffrey and Trevor Fox
Directed by Jeremy Herrin
Live favourites Joe Caffrey and Trevor Fox are currently working on
a play about death, sex and cookery. Set in a restaurant in the North
East, chef Ken Wood waits to see if the people from Michelin will
award him another star. This entertaining evening will be a presentation
of research to date, a chance for the audience to ask questions -
and may even include a live cookery demonstration.
Saturday 5 June 10am-5pm
Get Started
Writing workshop with Jeremy Herrin and Gez Casey
Ever fancied writing a play? A practical introduction for 18-30 year
olds on how to go about writing a play. No experience necessary.
Free
Sunday 6 June 3pm
Shot Cuts VII
Following on from the other events in this popular series, writers
are asked to submit scripts for short plays. The best of these will
be read to an audience at the event by members of the Northumbria
Live Academy.
Sunday 6 June 7pm
55 Degrees North
A preview of this brand new Tyneside based BBC drama series, starring
Don Gilet and Dervla Kirwan. Followed by a Q & A session with
the writer and producer.
Free
Wednesday 9 June 8pm
Desert Island Plays
With Alan Plater
Castaway Alan Plater talks about some of his favourite plays to Live's
Artistic Director Max Roberts. Extracts will be read by a cast of
actors familiar to Live audiences.
Friday 11 June 8pm
Lush Life
Written by Paul Sirett
Directed by Max Roberts
A reading of a new play using the songs of Ella Fitzgerald to tell
the story of a woman from the North East looking back on the defining
moments of her life.
Saturday 12 June 5.30 - 6.30pm
Career Development for Theatre Writers
With Jonathan Meth
Anything and everything you want to know about the business of being
a working theatre writer: the markets for your work and your professional
development.
Jonathan Meth is Director of Writernet, a national organisation which
exists to give dramatic writers the tools they need to build better
careers and redefine the culture in which they work
Free
Saturday 12 June 8pm
Last Stop Louisa's
In association with Show of Strength Theatre Company
Written by Amanda Whittington
Directed by Martin Wylde
A reading of a new play. It's business as usual at Louisa's, a cheap
and cheerful roadside café. Louisa and her husband Pete seem
happy with their lot but when Pete's brother Joe returns home from
the USA, he brings old scores to settle and a chance for Louisa to
escape her humdrum life.
Sunday 13 June 3pm
The King of Meat
Written by Margaret Wilkinson
Directed by Jeremy Herrin
A reading of a new play. Ernest Lamb, a butcher with security mania,
has a failing business, a nervous and needy wife, a daughter who loves
vampires and an aged mother who talks to her late husband's ashes.
Desperate and gullible, Lamb has invited Wilcox, a sharp money man
with the eyes of a shark, to dinner. Wilcox has a tempting proposition.
He seems to be the answer to all Lamb's problems…
 |
Wednesday 16 June 8pm
The Taxi Driver's Daughter
Written by Julia Darling
Directed and developed by Max Roberts
A first look at how Julia Darling's touching and engaging novel could
be turned into a play. Caris' world is falling apart. As well as the
usual trials and tribulations of teenage life, the police have just
announced that her mother, Louise, has been caught stealing shoes
in a department store. In this funny and tragic story, Caris' father
Mac, a taxi driver, struggles to keep the family together as Christmas
looks set to be a disaster - especially when Louise's drunken, dishevelled
mother moves in…
 |
Wednesday 16 & Saturday 19 June 8pm
Thursday 17 & Friday 18 June 7.30 & 9.30pm
Warcrime
Presented by The Wedding Collective
By David Williams
Directed by Stephen Tiller
In war, no one is innocent.
Staged in the evocative and unusual setting of the Tyne Bridge Tower,
Warcrime is a unique event. This play has already attracted
sell-out audiences to its London shows, which were performed in a
derelict church crypt.
Warcrime is based on real events. A young woman killed by an
off-course cluster bomb is brought face-to-face in a courtroom with
the pilot who killed her. Tribunal or kangaroo court? You decide...
The play exposes the gaps between CNN and real lives. Do we, when
observing from this distance really know anything about the lives
of the people we are so quick to judge? Warcrime confronts
the absurdities and human costs of recent wars and interventions and
those still to come.
Tickets: £12/8
Location: Tyne Bridge Tower at the base of the Tyne Bridge (Newcastle
side).
Entrance from the quayside.
Duration: 1 hr 15 mins
Friday 18 June 5.30-7.30pm
How to Write for Radio
With Melanie Harris (BBC)
Come along to this practical session with Melanie Harris, project
manager of BBC Northern Exposure, and find out how to go about developing
ideas and scripts for this most accessible, immediate and powerful
medium!
Free
Friday 18 June 8pm
After Ikea
Written by Alice de Smith
Directed by Jeremy Herrin
A reading of a new play. Joel and Tanya are the perfect couple. Young
and beautiful, they spend Sundays in Ikea, holding hands as they browse
through the miscellaneous kitchenware. Back home, however, things
tend to get nasty. Assembling a Swedish spice rack can have that effect
on anyone. They have just one hope of salvation. Cameron's a smooth-talking
libertine with a liking for cranberry vodka. He's visited their flat
a hundred times, but tonight is different…
Saturday 19 June 11am
Writing Workshop
With Nina Steiger (Soho Theatre)
An opportunity for playwrights to get a head start on submissions
for this year's Verity Bargate award. Writers' Centre Director, Nina
Steiger, leads this open access session designed to offer playwrights
on every level a sampling of fresh approaches to the basic building
blocks of writing (or re-writing) a new play.
Free
Saturday 19 June 6pm
This Much I Know…
Four Live writers join Michael Chaplin (Monarch of the Glen,
Grafters) to reveal their own particular tricks of the trade.
A must-attend event for any aspiring writer.
Free
Saturday 19 June 8pm
Actors and Orphans
Written by Tom Hadaway
Directed by Max Roberts/Jeremy Herrin
A reading of a new play. On 28 July 1932, Stan Laurel and Babe Hardy
arrive at the Grand Hotel, Tynemouth. The media are hot on their heels;
they are wanted men seeking sanctuary from the chaos of their lives.
Meanwhile, the chambermaids at the hotel dream of a new life in the
shiny world of the movie makers and shy Betty holds a picture, given
to her by the nuns, of Stan Laurel and her mother.
Sunday 20 June 12-2pm
Pitch That Script
Come and learn the ABC (art, business and craft) of pitching from
Melanie Harris, BBC Northern Exposure.
Free
Sunday 20 June 8pm
Body Parts
Seven writers take a different part of the body as a starting point
to create a short play. Plays will be written by Sean O'Brien, Julia
Darling, Barrie Darke, Alice de Smith, Karen Laws, Gez Casey, Trevor
Fox and Joe Caffrey. This event is in association with the BBC and
it is hoped that theses scripts will go on to be developed for television
and radio - come along and be part of this major new project.
Saturday 26 June 7.30pm
From Stage to Screen
An interview led discussion headed by playwright and screenwriter
Peter Straughan. Peter will talk about his experience of starting
to write for film after an early career in theatre, as well as the
demands of adapting work originally written for the stage into a screenplay.
There will be the chance to ask questions as part of the event.
Location: Tyneside Cinema
