After the stunning success of The Dupe, When the Balloon Bursts and Welcome to Thebes in Semester One, Drama St Mary’s the University Drama School at St Mary’s University, Twickenham will be preparing for six productions in 2020, which will be performed in February, March and May.
Shakespeare’s Women will be directed by St Mary’s alumna, Kat McGarr, who is part of the renowned immersive theatre pioneers Punchdrunk. The production is an immersive and interactive journey through the real lives of Shakespeare’s women. The audience will be able to follow each of them into their own unique worlds as they tell their respective stories and their relationship with the playwright himself.
Doubtful Hapless Guests is a bold and creative physical theatre piece that will transport its audience into a strange and otherly world with equal parts being playful and unsettling. Directed by St Mary’s alumnus Andy Brunskill whose company Brunskill and Grimes create puppetry work for events, theatre, film and commercials. Some of their latest work can be seen through the global multi-million album selling band Coldplay and their video for a recent single Daddy.
Shakespeare’s Women will be directed by St Mary’s alumna, Kat McGarr, who is part
Both Shakespeare’s Women and Guest will be running from February 25th-28th at Drama St Mary’s.
In the following month Drama St Mary’s will showcase a further two productions with both running from March 24th-27th.
The first …And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is a play by Marcus Gardley with the US Civil war providing the setting in which Greek myth, talking trees, singing rivers and a moonwalking Jesus combine to interrogate the politics of sex and the body.
Directed by the JMK Young Directors Award winner of 2019, Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu, who recently directed Little Baby Jesus to great acclaim at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, the play is an affecting story whose essence is one of longing, redemption and forgiveness.
The second play to run in March is The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, directed by St Mary’s with Senior Lecturer Kasia Zaremba-Byrne, who has successfully returned from working at last year’s Edinburgh Festival with the theatre company Dead Rabbits.
The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol explores survival, hope and love. Born into a peasant family in France in 1900, marked from birth and teased as a child. Abandoned by her lover, Jean and banished by her family she becomes an outcast, beginning her second life alone. Lucie survives by selling mushrooms and berries and smuggling good across the border. However, it isn’t until her third life, her afterlife that Lucie discovers the survival of something more than bare human existence.
The final two productions will run from May 19th-22nd. The first, The Wolves by Sarah Delappe will be directed by Anastasia Ossei Kufor. Anastasia is an associate at Theatre 503 and she has just directed Richard Blackwood in his one man show Typical.
The Wolves features a girls’ football team who train together on stage. During their training and through the course of the play their discussions and relationships show the audience how young women interpret and understand the modern world and their place in it. The question is asked – can they keep all of this together amid ambition and tragedy? The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2017.
The final production An Experiment with an Air Pump by Shelagh Stephenson will be directed by Trevor Walker, Professor of Drama Education at St Mary’s and an experienced director in the UK and Europe.
The play won a number of awards when it first opened in 1997 and it takes place in the same house in two different time periods, 1799 and 1999. The play questions the basic principles of medical research, such as the right of the scientist to cross ethical limits. In 1799 it showcases the right to perform dissection on the recently deceased and the use of embryos in stem cell research in 1999.
Head of Humanities and Creative Industries at St Mary’s Mark Griffin said; “We’re all very excited about the six productions that will run in 2020.
“All six represent a wide range of subjects, which will showcase not only some excellent acting and production team talent at St Mary’s but also a number of award winning directors, who will challenge our students and help them produce equitable high quality performances to the ones we saw in our plays before Christmas.
“The plays provide an excellent platform for our students to showcase their talents in front of and behind the curtain and as our recent alumna, Vaneeka Dadhira, has shown in the current production of ‘Cyrano’ in the West End there are genuine opportunities for our students to move forward after graduation and further their careers.”
To buy tickets for any of the productions please book on our website.
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