QExtraQExtra: My Muse Festival
Various ArtistsA whole week of new writing awaits...
This year’s week featuring the new writing of Questors members and QExtra associates features a diverse range of styles and pieces celebrating inspirational figures, both public and personal.
From an opening evening of 10 minute shorts to a grand finale of music and poetry, this two-shows-a-night experience contains tributes to women of influence such as Alma Reville and Dorothy Kilgallen to more personal influences and experiences.
The dream is to have audiences involved in the development of these plays and to hopefully attend as many shows as possible in order to create a number of creative and critical connections. A play is written, directed and performed but only made real in the eye of the audience. This week of staged readings aims to make theatre with you.
Info
Dates: Monday 13 to Saturday 18 July
Time: 7:30pm
Price: £5 per night
Age recommendation: 16+
Monday 13 July
A selection of readings written by members of the QExtra playwriting workshop. A fun evening of assorted plots which will take the audience from musing on muses, to a surprising mother, and maybe even the end of the world.
Short plays by David Erdos, Ben Francis, Isabel del Rio, Martin Choules, David Hovatter, and Lucy Aley Parker.
Tuesday 14 July
Life Through a Convex Lens, written and performed by Harry Roebuck
From the moment I was born, I have lived in the Falkland Islands,
Canada, Liverpool, and Scotland. Life Through a Convex Lens is a
semi-autobiographical one-man show chronicling the first ten years of my
life (by “my”, I mean me Harry – hello). Covering love of the arts,
pains of growing up and all the while dealing and living with Aspergers,
come join me for an entertaining evening! I promise it’s not
depressing.
Runaway to Paris, by Catherine Luff
"Veins
chez moi - for a philosophical interlude in which city no less?
Gay Paris !
Born out of abbreviated autobiographical events I started writing nearly
4 years ago as some journalistic accounts I finally decided to put onto
their feet.
I felt a need to tell this story as it was climatic account of
resolution and growth born from the ashes of a French cigarette."
Wednesday 15 July
A Kind of Magic, by Deborah Sherwell
"The idea for
this play came from a good friend I first meet at a writing workshop.
His constant positivity, and encouragement has been an endless source of
inspiration.
A Kind of Magic is a family drama of endurance, of love lost and
found, and of unexpected support. Being a magician isn’t always easy so
best travel hopefully."
Shorton, by Benjamin Toms
On the night of his murder on August 9th 1967 notorious playwright and provocateur Joe Orton meets the character of Death in an Islington Public Toilet; it is here that he realises that what awaits him is possible recompense for his previous excesses as detailed in this language led play of ideas and premonition. As Orton talks for his life he is transported from fear to a form of acceptance. Fate can be a hard thing to swallow.
Thursday 16 July
The Muse(s), written & directed by Anayis N. Der Hakopian
“Would
you say yes to becoming a Painter’s Muse?” Nazia isn’t too sure on how
to respond when Levante, an art conservator, invites her in from the
working fields and asks for her to pose for him amongst the restorations
of past famous muses. Her doubts start to manifest into the reanimated
voices of those kept feminine figures as they warn her on what is in
store in agreeing to join them on stretched canvas. This speculative
poetic dystopian piece questions the act of freely giving consent for
our likeness to be captured, reused, remastered, and why it matters why
and who we are painted by in any century of time.
Friday 17 July
Yes, Alma, Yes by Isabel del Rio pays homage to filmmaker and
screenwriter Alma Reville, focusing on her collaboration with her
husband, the celebrated film director Alfred Hitchcock. For some,
Reville lived in Hitchcock’s shadow; for others, her film work has yet
to receive the recognition it deserves. The play explores whether she
deliberately avoided a broader film career, possibly as a film director,
or whether her life exemplified the 'woman behind the man' effect by
supporting and encouraging Hitchcock’s achievements. In the play, facts
are reinterpreted for dramatic effect, with conversations unfolding as
film scenes.
Saturday 18 July
The Pitzhanger Poets, issue 137
