Newcastle's Live Theatre has announced the writers who will take part in Rendezvous, the celebration of the life and work of Julia Darling, which will run from 28 May to 6 June.
"Julia Darling was a writer in residence at Live Theatre from 2001 to 2003," said Gez Casey, Live's Literary Manager. "During this time she wrote The Last Post, Attachments, Venetia Love Goes Netting, Personal Belongings and Sudden Collapses in Public Places.
"In the 10th anniversary year of Julia’s death we wanted to create an event which celebrates Julia’s life and writing but also one which summed up her passion for encouraging writers and emerging artists to make new work."
The writers—Laura Lindow (Sawdust & Stardust and Your Aunt Fanny), Deborah Bruce (director of Geoff Dead: Disco For Sale), Nina Berry (10 Minutes To…) and Holly Reed Macrae, who will be making her Live Theatre debut—were tasked with creating a new twenty-minute play using Julia Darling as inspiration.
The plays and their writers are:
- Currently Under Construction by Laura Lindow is a funny, powerful play that follows the life of a hospital park bench and the fragments of the stories of the people that come and go.
- Deborah Bruce has written a script using Julia Darling’s poem Two Lighthouses as a starting point. The Light examines our need for comfort and reassurance when we are about to embark on one of life's big decisions. Jack's getting married to Charlie, but there's something missing. We look for signs and interpret them to explore our hopes and fears. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the right thing with the right person? Am I doing the right thing with the right person at the right time? How do we know if everything's going to be alright?
- Recent graduate of Northumbria University Nina Berry has written a piece inspired by Julia’s letter writing. Meet Sophie: she’s a lover of all things outdoorsy only she’s afraid of leaving her front door. Meet Nick: he’s a bit hopeless to say the least but his heart is always in the right place. These two awkward individuals’ worlds collide by way of an accidental letter but what happens when the letters must stop? This is a story about love. A story about trust, about losing yourself in another person, about losing yourself in letters and about falling in love with the world outside all over again.
- Holly Reed Macrae will be working with Live Theatre for the first time having recently graduated from the Theatre’s Introduction to Playwriting course and Live Writer’s Group. Influenced by Julia's poetry, Anti-Gravity is a stark depiction of a mother and daughter's transit against the tide of illness. She is being mentored by writer Karin Young, a friend and long-time associate of Julia Darling, who was also writer-in-residence at Live Theatre and is now a senior scriptwriter on ITV's Emmerdale.
A further piece will be announced at a later date.