The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes, a new play by young Newcastle playwright Nina Berry, is to première at Live Theatre before Christmas.
The play, which started life as a twenty-minute short performed as part of Live Lab's Christmas Adventures in December 2015, will be co-directed by Max Roberts and Graeme Thompson and asks if two paths in time can ever be the same. From youth to old age, from Trafalgar Square to Chillingham Road, it looks at what it means to grow up, fall in love and how the tiniest, most seemingly insignificant detail can change eternity. Or then again maybe not.
Max Roberts, Live’s artistic director, said, “this is the first full length play by Nina Berry, an interesting emerging writer from Newcastle with real talent. Her writing is distinctive, witty and contemporary and her play will provide a delightful alternative Christmas entertainment.”
“Since completing Live Theatre's Introduction to Playwriting Course in 2013,” Gez Casey, literary manager at Live Theatre added, “Nina has developed her playwriting skills with us through a series of commissions for Live Lab, the talent development strand at Live Theatre, our Youth Theatre as well as collaborative productions such as Rendezvous, commemorating the memory of former writer-in-residence Julia Darling, for which she wrote Words With Love.”
In our BTG Review of Theatre in the North East in 2015, I wrote, “I fully intended to name one promising newcomer, a person or company which looks set to make a big contribution to theatre in the region in the coming years, but three candidates emerged during the course of the year and I really can’t separate them.” One of these candidates—the only individual—was Nina Berry.
The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes runs in Live’s Studio from 8 to 17 December. Dean Bone (who played in Words With Love) from Gateshead and Heather Carroll (Death at Dawn, Cloud Nine Theatre Company) from Newcastle will take on the roles of Charlie and Rosie, two people in many places.
Berry commented, “Live Theatre is where my love of theatre first manifested itself. It's also where I have been given the opportunity to grow as a writer with the ongoing support of Graeme Thompson, Gez Casey and Max Roberts and it's an honour to be working with them on The Terminal Velocity of Snowflakes.
"Seeing my first full-length play come to life at Live Theatre, a place that I hold so close to my heart, has been an ambition of mine since I first began writing and I am incredibly excited for rehearsals to commence.”