First Person: playwright Tanika Gupta on being back in the rehearsal room once more | reviews, news & interviews First Person: playwright Tanika Gupta on being back in the rehearsal room once more
First Person: playwright Tanika Gupta on being back in the rehearsal room once more
The writer expresses her joy at going Out West
by Tanika GuptaMonday, 07 June 2021
On the first day of rehearsals for
Out West at the Lyric Hammersmith in May, myself and fellow playwrights Roy Williams and Simon Stephens stood, masked up and lateral flow tested for Covid, and listened as the Lyric Hammersmith s artistic director Rachel O’Riordan welcomed us at the traditional thea
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“I enjoyed all of that, of course,” says Sievewright, “but I just felt there was something about me that didn’t quite fit in to that West End world. I wanted to get back into the Scottish scene; and In 2012, I had an audition for Cora Bissett’s Glasgow Girls, the musical about the Glasgow schoolgirls who campaigned for their asylum seeker friends to stay in the UK.
Dawn Sievewright and John McLarnan
“And as soon as I got into that, I just thought, this is it, this is what I’ve been looking for. Then I met Vicky Featherstone, the then-director of the National Theatre of Scotland, and she has been a huge influence on me as well, an amazing director.”
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Peering over the top were the spectators ,the riders’ dizzy faces coming within touching distance, the racket of the engines and smell of the diesel helping to charge this electric atmosphere.
Volunteer PK in the Wall of Death removing a parachute that was draped over the structure. PIC: Robert Perry.
Now in a warehouse on the edge of the Clyde, Artist Stephen Skrynka and a team of volunteers have built a brand new Wall of Death, the first to be created in Scotland.
There were no drawings, no plans and no money but the wooden superstructure, which measures 16ft high and 29ft across and was built using only hand tools and carpentry, has slotted together in a perfect, purposeful fashion, each piece finding its own place in this remarkable project born out of lockdown.
Zia Ahmed, Tife Kusoro and Ruby Thomas Announced as Jerwood New Playwrights Writers
Zia Ahmed, Tife Kusoro and Ruby Thomas have all been offered full commissions to support them in developing their writing practice.by BWW News Desk
Now in its 26th year, The Royal Court Theatre Jerwood New Playwrights Programme continues to support emerging writers to develop their practice, take risks and create extraordinary new work. Zia Ahmed, Tife Kusoro and Ruby Thomas have all been offered full commissions to support them in developing their writing practice.
Since 1994, the Jerwood New Playwrights programme at the Royal Court has supported 78 writers who have had their plays produced in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs and the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. In 2020, the scheme was relaunched with a new focus on writer development opportunities for emerging playwrights with writers Hester Chillingworth, Somalia Nonyé Seaton and Ross Willis receiving the commissions.