The Bread & Roses Theatre - News

Sex, Lies & Improvisation at The Bread & Roses Theatre

21/6/2021

The Bread & Roses is delighted to welcome four nationally-acclaimed improvisation shows to our stage from the 1st to 3rd July. The award-winning Sex, Lies & Improvisation hosts a different headline act each night. Performer Rachel E. Thorn tells us more.

Tell us about your award-winning show.
Sex, Lies & Improvisation is a dark comedy about why we lie to the people we love. We have a host of real-life lies which have been submitted anonymously to the show and we ask the audience to choose one to inspire the story we tell. All we know is that Alex and I will play a couple and one of us has a secret to keep. We were The Phoenix Remix Act Of The Year 2019.

And why do you work in improvisation?
Firstly improvisation is a great source of comedy, as anyone who watched Whose Line Is It Anyway? knows. But the best thing about improv is it’s probably the most engaging theatrical art form we have.

The Bread and Roses Theatre proudly presents I and the Village

30/4/2021

The Bread and Roses Theatre proudly presents
I and the Village
Written by Darren Donohue | Directed by Rebecca Pryle & Velenzia Spearpoint
Top three winner of The Bread & Roses Playwriting Award 2019/2020
The Bread and Roses Theatre are delighted to have been awarded a grant from the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund. This funding has enabled the award-winning pub theatre to recover, reopen and bring an exciting new production to life.

The Bread and Roses Theatre will be reopening on Tuesday 25 May 2021, starting with an in-house produced play, one of three winners of Bread & Roses Playwriting Award (2019) , I and the Village by Darren Donohue. The play will be co-directed by the theatre’s Artistic Director and Managing Director, Velenzia Spearpoint and Rebecca Pryle. This is also made possible thanks to Lambeth Economic Resilience Fund, The Royal Victoria Hall Foundation, Unity Theatre Trust and every single individual who donated to the online appeal.

Artistic Director, Velenzia Spearpoint, said “Myself and the entire team were moved to tears by this play, it opens us up to a hidden part of the world and sheds light on the urgency of the issues behind the Direct Provision Centre. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who donated and supported our theatre during these trying times, however big or small and every act of spreading the word has made this possible, we can’t wait to share this important story with you!”

“No one knows we’re here, to them we are invisible”

Starring Chido Kunene, Funke Adeleke, Laide Sonola and Mark Rush, I and the Village explores the consequences of long term confinement in a system designed to be flawed. A story of longing, survival and hope. Other creatives involved are Set and Costume Designer Constance Villemot, Lighting and Sound Designer Chuma Emembolu, Dramaturg and Researcher Matilda Velevitch, Assistant Director Tom Ward, Produced by Natalie Chan with Creative Producer Tessa Hart and Assistant Producer Rosie Sharp.

Living in limbo at an isolated Direct Provision Centre, Keicha and Jeta await decisions on their status to remain in Ireland. Sharing a room, their memories and fantasies seep into the dank walls merging into one story. When eighteen-year-old Hannah joins them she must fight to maintain her sense of identity or risk getting swept up in their reality. Limited in what he can do, kind hearted Carl, battles with his morals and his position as Centre Manager.

Tickets are now on sale, visit here
For press tickets and further information, contact Natalie Chan via natalie@breadandrosestheatre.co.uk or 07432193819

Recommended 16+, contains strong language and adult themes.
Previews: 25th & 26th May 2021 | Press night: 27th May 2021
Tuesday 25th - Saturday 30th May at 7.30pm & Saturday 30th May 2:30pm
Tuesday 2nd - Saturday 5th June at 7.30pm & Saturday 5th June 2:30pm
Tickets: £14 | Concessions: £12 | Running time: 90 minutes

PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS BREAD & ROSES PLAYWRITING AWARD WINNERS
"Funny, moving, powerful new play" ★★★★★ - Remotegoat
"a renewed sense of wonder at the human spirit" ★★★★★ - Breaking the Fourth Wall
"Full of mellow humour and tasty conflict of character" ★★★★ & Top Pick of the Month - LPT Magazine

CAST
JETA | CHIDO KUNENE
Chido Kunene is a Zimbabwean native and has lived in the UK most of her life. She has been acting and in continuous training for over 5years with Institutional Acting in London. Some of her theatre work includes Alfie playing (Vy), Lysistrata playing (Rhoddiphe). Chido is also in a short feature film playing the role of a Healer, titled N'anga that is due to come out this year. Chido is honoured to be playing the role of Jeta as she sees a little of herself in Jeta. 'I believe this is a story that would shed light to those who are blind at how confinement can change one's equilibrium, especially when treated less than humane'

KEICHA | FUNKE ADELEKE
Funke is an actor musician who was a lead singer in a band called London Afrobeat Collective for 4 years where she won the Best Black British award in 2015 after releasing an album called Food Chain. She studied at Royal Central school of Speech and Drama. She is also a member of Clean Break where she won her bursary to study at Central. She has been working in the industry consistently since leaving Central in 2017. She has been in numerous commercials, most notably the Just Eat advert, an R&D with Wretched Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and Graeae Theatre. She can also be seen in short films Padre and Sweatbox.

HANNAH | LAIDE SONOLA
Laide trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts
Theatre credits include : Take Me Back (Criterion Theatre & UK Tour), The Countdown (Millfield Theatre), The Jungle Book (Tabard Theatre & Sala Umberto Theatre, Rome), Metamorphosis (Hen and Chickens Theatre), Beauty and the Beast (Colour House Theatre)/ Film credits include : Rethinktion, Behind Closed Doors, Deadly Distraction

CARL | MARK RUSH
Mark is an Irish actor who studied at Drama Studio London. He is delighted to be playing the role of Carl in I and the Village and to have the opportunity to work with an incredibly talented cast and creative team to tell this compelling and urgent story. His theatre credits include Napoleon Blown Apart (Arcola), Woyzeck (UK tour & Redbridge Drama Centre), The Waiting Room (Leicester Square Theatre & Arts Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (St. George's Gardens & UK Tour) Awkward Balloon (Old Red Lion Theatre), Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (Scene Productions) and Romeo & Juliet (Rosemary Branch Theatre). Mark is also the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Wanderers.

THE BREAD & ROSES THEATRE AND COMPANY
A 40- to 60-seat award-winning and innovative fringe theatre above The Bread & Roses Pub in Clapham, which programs a wide-spread variety of productions for local as well as far-reaching audiences. Equality, diversity and artistic quality are at the forefront of the theatre's programming, which features in-house productions as well as many visiting companies. The theatre was launched in November 2014 and is managed by The Bread & Roses Theatre Company (BRTC), who had been using an upstairs function room at the pub since 2012 for their short play night ‘The Platform’. After converting the space into a theatre the BRTC also went on to produce full-scale productions of a new adaptation of August Strindberg’s 'Miss Julie' in 2015, 'Low Level Panic' by Clare McIntyre in 2016, ‘dirty butterfly’ by debbie tucker green and the premiere of their playwriting award winner ‘The Black Eye Club’ by Phil Charles in 2017 and runners-up 'Little Did I Know' by Doc Andersen Bloomfield and The Buzz by Lydia Rynne in 2018.
PLAYWRIGHT | DARREN DONOHUE
Darren Donohue is an award-winning Irish playwright and poet. His plays and readings for the Abbey Theatre include Home Game, The Death of Actaeon, Home-from-Home.
Other plays include, Dayshift (Tramedautore Theatre Festival – Milan, Festival on the Crisis PIIGS – Barcelona), Voices in the Rubble (Rapid Lemon Productions – Washington D.C.), Tuesday Evening (following the news) (Fishamble), A Bucket Full of Fire (Sheer Tantrum/Pandora), The Bird Trap (Three Streets Theatre Company), Revelations, Propelled Upright (Dublin Fringe Festival), Bedlam (Dublin Theatre Festival), Dual Cats with One Crayfish (Irish Repertory Theatre - New York).
In 2020, Darren won the Radius Playwriting Prize, in association with Finborough Theatre and received the Dennis O’Driscoll Literary Award. His work was also shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award, 2020. He is currently a ‘Through the Mill’ Finalist at the Hope Mill Theatre.
Darren was writer-in-residence at Carlow College in 2019 and at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, 2020.
CO-DIRECTOR | VELENZIA SPEARPOINT
Theatremaker Velenzia Spearpoint has over 10 years experience on the fringe theatre scene as a director, performer and producer. As of April 2018 she became Artistic Director at the Bread & Roses Theatre & in January 2019 co-founded the Chapel Playhouse. She is also co-founder of women-led theatre company Get Over It Productions and consistently works with several other companies and theatres across London. Recent credits include, Difficult Conversations (Union Theatre), Hungerland (Bread & Roses Theatre), Lucky 8 (Glass Half Full- Online) & The Scene (Chiswick Playhouse / Podcast).
CO-DIRECTOR | REBECCA PRYLE
Rebecca Pryle is the Managing Director and Co-founder of The Bread & Roses Theatre. Graduating with a BA Hons in Drama before training as an actress at the Maggie Flanigan Studio in New York on a two year Meisner Conservatory program. Rebecca has worked in theatre for the past 12 years as an actress and creative producer and in more recent years as a director. Rebecca has appeared in four of BRTC's full length in-house productions, including 'Miss Julie', 'Low Level Panic', 'Dirty Butterfly' and 'The Black Eye Club', ‘The Vagina Monologues’ several times, ‘Age of Love’ at the Camden Fringe Festival and numerous new writing nights around town with other theatre companies.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR | TOM WARD
Tom Ward (Bread & Roses Emerging Director 2021) is a theatre director interested in finding new, dynamic ways of telling stories that affect marginalised, vulnerable groups of people/individuals. He has worked internationally (in Beijing and Barcelona as an Assistant) and has been making work on the fringe for the last 3 years. He can’t wait to call The Bread and Roses Theatre home for the year, and he looks forward to building his confidence as an artist, developing his skills, making connections with exciting new writers, and becoming a more effective theatre maker.

PRODUCER | NATALIE CHAN
Natalie is a theatre producer from Hong Kong. Currently she is General Manager for Creative Youth and Associate Producer for The Bread and Roses Theatre. Prior to this she has worked with Spun Glass Theatre, Arch468, The Coronet Theatre and Pleasance Theatre in varying capacities. Natalie started her career as Resident Assistant Producer for Theatre503. Recent highlights include working with BFI Network to deliver fundraising workshops and producing Dumbledore Is So Gay which won the VAULT Festival’s Origins Award 2020.

ASSISTANT PRODUCER | ROSIE SHARP
Rosie Sharp is a producer, actor and writer. Before graduating from Italia Conti in 2019, she co-founded the female-led company Ginger & Blonde Theatre. Writing alongside partner Anna McKelvie, their debut production "IS THAT ALL THERE IS?" sold out at The Bread & Roses in October 2019. Since then the piece has been developed and will be staged at The Old Red Lion in March this year. Since graduating from drama school she has been working with The Young Shakespeare Company, playing Macduff on their theatre tour of Macbeth. Rosie is passionate and excited by new writing. She cannot wait to be part of such an innovative and inclusive theatre and is proud to be The Bread & Roses emerging producer of 2021.

LIGHTING & SOUND DESIGNER & OPERATOR | CHUMA EMEMBOLU
Chuma Emembolu is a Lighting/Sound/Video Designer and a director. He training at the RSC as a designer and has had over ten years of experience designing shows for theatre in the Rep and Fringe. As one of the original directors of Aequitas theatre company he has designed shows around the London fringe circuit. Chuma is a professional member of the Association of Lighting Designers and Equity. An expert programmer working on Avolites, EOS, grand, strand lighting desks and QLab he continues to create innovative, intriguing and unique designs on every show.

SET & COSTUME DESIGNER | CONSTANCE VILLEMOT
Constance is a set and costume designer based in London. What she really appreciates about theatre and performing art in general is the collective effort leading to a performance. She designs simple and poetic spaces to enhance and engage with the audience’s imagination beyond what they can see. Her most recent credits include Love, Genius and a Walk (director Leah Townley, LGW Productions), Tell it Slant (director Erica Miller, Merry Spinsters), Miss Julie (director Gavin McAlinden, Acting Gymnasium), A Doll's House (director Gavin McAlinden, Acting Gymnasium), The Seagull (director Julien Balajas, Tamise en Scene), The Frogs (director Zara Walwyn, Wallfrog LTD), Dare to Dream (director Karen Gillingham, Buckinghamshire Music Trust), Jekyll & Hyde (director Jonny Morton, Chickenshed).
CREATIVE PRODUCER | TESSA HART
Tessa Hart is a culture maker in performance, film and sociocultural fields, who has primarily worked and studied in the UK and Germany. Besides being a co-founder & Executive Director of The Bread & Roses Theatre, Tessa also served as its Artistic Director from 2014 to 2018, when she stepped down to focus on her work in Berlin, where she is currently the Project Director of AfroPolitan Berlin. Tessa is also the Artistic Director of Goblin Baby Co. and holds an MFA in Acting International from East 15 Acting School as well as a BA in Theatre Studies from the Free University of Berlin, where she is currently also completing a PhD.

2021 Here We Come: Emerging Company Award, New Team Members, Continued Closure.

8/1/2021

Happy New Year! May 2021 be a year of recovery. Whilst we remain closed due to the national lockdown we are hopeful for a full programme later in the year and look forward to welcoming back visiting companies and audiences at some unkown, unpredictable, uncertain point this year. In the meantime we continue to battle for our own survival with the uncertainties ahead, but are also glad to have some good news in store to kick off the year.

The Bread & Roses Emerging Company Award 2021 open for submissions

Thanks to funding from the Culture Recovery Fund, we are able to go ahead with The Bread & Roses Emerging Company Award 2021, which will offer an emerging BAME/BIPoC*-led theatre company a one-week funded research and development (R&D) period, envisaged for March 2021, with the additional possibility of a professional production run at the theatre at a later point.
*See full details and information on how to apply here.
Deadline is January 31st, 2021.

Welcoming new team members

With much delay - after the 2020 whirlwind and hold up on particularly in-house projects - we have finally found our new Associate Producer: Natalie Chan.

Natalie is a producer from Hong Kong and now based in London. She works in the fundraising team for Creative Youth Charity and is a recipient of the Blackbaud Scholarship for pursuing a part time MA in Philanthropic Studies at the University of Kent.
Recent highlights include working with BFI Network to deliver fundraising workshops and producing Dumbledore Is So Gay which won the VAULT Festival’s Origins Award 2020. She previously trained as Resident Assistant Producer at Theatre503 and worked as Box Office Deputy Manager for Pleasance Theatre Trust.

Also joining the team is Lynne McConway as our newly appointed Finance & Funding Manager.

Lynne is an independent producer and arts fundraiser. She left a career in the City three years ago to pursue a career in theatre and produced Vibrant 2017 and Returning to Haifa, both at Finborough Theatre , and Tiger Mum at VAULT festival 2020. Lynne was Assistant Producer in 2018 at Vicky Graham Productions where she worked on Thor & Loki at Edinburgh Fringe. In 2019, she was awarded a Stage One New Producer bursary.
Most recently, Lynne worked with Iris Theatre as Fundraising Coordinator raising funds for their summer seasons and a Covid19 emergency appeal. She was also responsible for bid writing and fundraising as part of her role as Line Producer with Flute Theatre.

We welcome them both to the team and are very excited to have them on board to work on the theatre's survival and growth, as for the time being the future remains uncertain.

We are incredibly grateful for the funding, donations and support we have received throughout this troubling time, but continue being reliant on further help whilst on lockdown or pyhsical-distancing-restrictions. If you can support us in keeping fringe theatre alive and exciting, we are grateful for any donations.

The Bread & Roses Theatre receives lifeline grant from Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund

17/10/2020

The Bread & Roses Theatre has been awarded £50.000 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.

The Bread & Roses Theatre is one of 588 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support – with £76 million of investment announced today. This follows £257 million awarded earlier in the week to 1,385 organisations, also from the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.

The Bread & Roses Theatre is a fringe venue, which opened in 2014 above The Bread & Roses Pub in Clapham (South London). Artistic quality, equality and representation of our society's real diversity are at the forefront of the theatre's programming, which features visiting companies as well as in-house productions, with a focus on new writing, underrepresented voices and distinctive work. The Bread & Roses Theatre has always aimed to support theatremakers as much as possible by providing box office split deals, keeping overheads and running costs as low as possible and thereby, so far, surviving on mainly ticket sales alone. However, this meant that the impact of the necessary Covid-19 measures and restrictions has hit the theatre particularly hard, with extremely limited resources to fall back on.

After an initial lifeline from Lambeth Culture and Arts at Risk funding package that helped the venue through the spring/summer closure, the grant from the Culture Recovery Fund will now support The Bread & Roses Theatre in continuing its work and outreach in the months ahead. Currently the theatre is open under strict physical distancing and hygiene measures, as well as with a very limited seating capacity. Now The Bread & Roses Theatre can continue its support towards visiting companies, has some more security for in-house projects and outreach programmes aimed at emerging and underrepresented artists, and thus can carry on providing audiences and artists with innovative events and programming.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “This is more vital funding to protect cultural gems across the country, save jobs and prepare the arts to bounce back. Through Arts Council England we are delivering the biggest ever investment in the arts in record time. Hundreds of millions of pounds are already making their way to thousands of organisations.
“These awards build on our commitment to be here for culture in every part of the country.”

Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said: “Culture is an essential part of life across the country, helping to support people’s wellbeing through creativity and self-expression, bringing communities together, and fuelling our world class creative industries.
“This latest set of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund builds on those announced recently and will help hundreds of organisations to survive the next few months, ensuring that the cultural sector can bounce back after the crisis. We will continue doing everything we can to support artists and cultural and creative organisations, with further funding to be announced in the coming weeks.”

Rebecca Pryle, Tessa Hart & Velenzia Spearpoint, Co-Directors of The Bread & Roses Theatre, said: “We are so grateful for this lifeline grant and all the support received throughout this challenging time, as when the arts are under threat, they become more important than ever. Just like many of the artists we work with, we have not followed the established paths, but paved our own, and continue to do so; nowadays even working across countries and Brexit borders.
We now gear up to move forward with even more strength and creativity, to break through ceilings and barriers, to make sure that Black lives matter, to keep learning and improving and questioning and challenging ourselves and to do everything we can to keep fringe theatre alive, diverse and exciting.”

What's been going on? What's happening next?

7/8/2020

Like everyone we have had a lot on our plates to juggle and make through these past months. We would like to thank everyone who has been sending us support (be it in the form of donations, creative inputs or kind words), and as we all continue to look at the uncertain times ahead, we are now gearing up for what’s ahead and have some news and updates.

Funding Announcement
When the theatre first closed under the conditions of lockdown it was scary times for our industry. At the B&R, seeing the months stretching out before us it was hard to see how we could come out the other side. We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded £10,000 from Lambeth Council under the terms of their Lambeth Culture and Arts at Risk funding package.

The news of the success of our application came at a particularly low point and gave us all a huge and hopeful boost. The Bread and Roses building has long been a centre point for the Clapham Community boasting a long, rich history of union action and fundraising. The theatre takes it lead from those ideals by supporting diversity and providing opportunity for creative expression to find roots in the area. It was encouraging to be thrown this lifeline which will allow us to continue to uphold these values. Thank you Lambeth Council!!!

Re-Opening (hopefully)
While we continue to keep our finger in the ever-changing winds of the government guidelines regarding the re-opening of entertainments venues, we are assuming for now - based on the current decisions – that we can re-open this month!

We have lined up the fantastic Integrity Theatre with their show F*ck Off, running 25th to 29th August with two shows a day, as we are, of course, operating with limited seating capacity as well as appropriate physical distancing and hygiene measures in place. Find all details here and we hope to see you soon!

Playwrights Circle
Like everyone, we have adapted over lockdown and found ways to continue to bring our theatre community together. It became more important to us than ever that we provide a space for creatives to meet, exchange ideas and hear feedback. So, we joined the growing family of Zoom acolytes and took our hugely popular Playwrights Circle, online!

Perhaps because of the shareability and convenience factors we’ve been thrilled to welcome many new faces to the group during this time and have also reconnected with some old faces who were once again able to attend from outside London. We will continue online sessions but also evaluate when in the coming weeks or months the traditional meet-ups will be possible again. Hopefully the group will continue to grow so we urge any interested parties to get in touch and register their interest! We’d love to hear from actors who are keen to read, writers who’d like to platform some work and anyone interested in sitting in. The coming dates and details can be found here: Playwrights Circle.

Emerging Producer/Director Scheme
One of The Bread & Roses Theatre’s successful initiatives is that which offers support and nurturing to an up and coming Theatre Director and a Theatre Producer, each year. This is known as the Associate Emerging Director/ Producer scheme, which offers the possibility to learn and work on in-house projects, as well as receive support towards their own endeavours. These placements begin in the early months of the year and we were excited to welcome Tom Ward (ED) and Rosie Sharp (EP) in to the team in February 2020. Given the restrictions COVID-19 since placed on the theatre we will not be able to offer the amount of work experience and support in 2020 normally part of the schemes, hence we will be rolling Rosie and Tom’s placements over in to 2021 as well. This means the application process for the next ED & EP scheme will not be open (as is usual) end of this year, but only again in 2021.

Rosie Sharp (Emerging Producer 2020/2021)

Tom Ward (Emerging Director 2020/2021)

Donations
We cannot express how hugely grateful we are for every donation we have received from supporters of the theatre. With the uncertain landscape before us we know that every penny will be vital to the survival of the theatre over the next year or so. Even being (potentially) open we will operate with hugely limited capacity and plan to offer box office splits in larger favour towards the visiting companies during this time, in order to also support them in their struggle to continue their creative work. Therefore, we continue to be grateful for any further donations and have some great incentives on offer too (such as paying for our loo roll, or naming a chair…). You can donate here.

Temporary Covid-19 Closure extended

24/3/2020

Following our previous announcement we are extending the theatre's temporary closure and postponement of shows until 16th May 2020. As before we will continue reviewing the situation on a day by days basis and see if it will be feasible to reopen after this date. We are also aiming to reschedule the cancelled shows wherever possible.

HOW YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT ARTISTS DURING COVID-19 CLOSURE

* Donate to visiting companies
Any 'would have been' audience can contribute to a donation pot which will be going fully to the visiting companies whose shows have had to be cancelled (proportionally distributed based on how many nights they would have played) - find out more on our starting page.

* Buy a playtext
Bring a little theatre home, discover new writing & support a playwright by purchasing one of our published plays here.

* Share & connect
Stay in touch with us & share our posts! If you have any queries, want to support us further, enquire about programming or just want to drop us a line, you can do so at info@breadandrosestheatre.co.uk

Stay safe and healthy & we hope to welcome you back to The Bread & Roses Theatre soon.

Show Postponements due to Covid-19

16/3/2020

After much contemplation and careful consideration, we have concluded, with a heavy heart, that considering the pandemic spread of Covid-19 and the associated dangers, we will sadly be closing The Bread & Roses Theatre and cancel all shows until 13th April 2020. We will continue reviewing the situation on a day by days basis and see if it will be feasible to reopen after this date.

Like many fringe theatres, we have absolutely no public funding and rely on ticket sales but found this to be the most responsible decision for us to take at this stage to protect our staff, artists, guests and the wider society.

We will contact all ticketholders and offer the possibility to receive a full refund or donate their ticket money to the visiting company. We would also like to ask further would have been audience members to consider contributing to a donation pot which would be going fully to the visiting companies (proportionally distributed based on how many performances they would have had). We will also aim to reschedule events wherever possible.

Stay safe and healthy!
In solidarity,
Rebecca, Tessa & Velenzia
The Bread & Roses Theatre team

Going Straight to Gay (or somewhere in-between)

13/1/2020

Ahead of Henriette Laursens' new solo-show opening at the Bread & Roses Theatre, we chatted with her about Going Straight to Gay (or somewhere in-between)...

What inspired you to create this show? Why this story?
As straight forward as it may sound my first gay relationship inspired this piece. I suddenly found myself in situations I’d never experienced in straight relationships, and as frustrating as it was, it’s just as funny looking back. I have an anthropology degree so I always saw myself as someone who was not defined by gender stereotypes, but being with a woman I learned that I’m just as much part of it as anyone else. I suddenly had to redefine myself as a partner, when I no longer had the gender stereotypes to fall back on. Furthermore, I experienced people treating us differently and we became the object of attention without doing anything other than show affection for one another. We were being sexualized for being in love. That was tough. I think this piece can help cast some light on how we see gender and relationships and hopefully the more we do so, it can make it a bit easier for LGBT+ community in the future.

What have been some of the highlights in the development of Going Straight to Gay?
I love to use my experiences from my own life and turn them into stories and scripts. I think the main highlight has been taking some of the episodes that really challenged me throughout my relationships and make them into something we can all laugh at. Not to neglect the importance of it, but instead to not let it control the here and now. If we can’t laugh about it, then what can we do?

Who should see this show?
Anyone who has ever dated anyone or been in a relationship. And if you’ve never dated anyone, but are interested in knowing something about it, this is also the show for you. My show covers not only my experiences with homo-sexual relationship but it also covers my experiences with former straight relationships. I think everyone who sees my show can recognise a thing or two from their own relationship whether that being with or without a same sex partner. And in the end this show is all about having a laugh, so if you like a laugh, this show is for you.

What attracted you to stage this production at The Bread & Roses Theatre?
This is in many ways a very personal piece, so I needed the performance venue to be somewhere with the experience and support of LGBT+ community. This is exactly why The Bread & Roses Theatre was a perfect fit.

A Writer's thoughts – 'Maisie' by Roger Goldsmith

25/11/2019

When I started writing plays I wrote conventional plays, mostly based on real life situations, stories I came across, or read about, sometimes with lots of characters, sometimes not.
'It Started With A Touch' a play about a Mother who witnesses her son beating up an innocent man, reporting him to the police, and her son being sent to prison, was my first London production, part of Wimbledon Studio's Fresh Ideas, and later ' Runaway' a two- hander loosely based on the Jeremy Forrest situation, a schoolteacher eloping with a schoolgirl to France, produced by Small But Mighty Theatre in Toronto.
It wasn't until I met Colin Burden the Artistic Director of The Bootleg Theatre Company in Salisbury that I ever regarded monologues as plays, or could be, that they could have value dramatically. It was something I had never considered. Who would want to come watch one person on a stage telling a story? Where's the 'drama' in that? What's the point? You may as well read a book or listen to the radio!
But I thought I'd give it a try. I wrote a play called 'Torched' sent it to Colin, he liked it and together with another monologue by Annie L Cooper entitled 'Cookie' forming a double bill under the title
of 'Deal With It', it was staged at Barons Court Theatre and toured the south west, very successfully and got great reviews.
It was followed by another monologue I wrote entitled 'Birth' about a lonely vicar's daughter, a virgin, who is raped , gets pregnant and has the child of her attacker, and her life is changed for the better because of it, winner of the Lost Theatre's One Act play festival, and perhaps the most successful to date. And 'Brotherly Love' about a brother's unhealthy love for his sister, which played at Barons Court a while back. I began to see the value in monologues. They weren't such a bad idea after all. And far better writers than me had proved they worked.

A Writer's Thoughts - Under the Radar by Jonathon Crewe

25/10/2019

In August 2017, journalist Kim Wall joined inventor Peter Madsen on a voyage on his private submarine, the UC3 Nautilus.  She was there to conduct an interview she'd requested earlier that year.  She never returned.

When I first read about this story, I was struck by the discussions and number of comments that returned to the same question - why did she go on that submarine alone with a stranger?

To which, the only response can be - why shouldn't she have?  Would you have asked the same question if she were a man?  Should she have changed her behaviour, not done her job, because she was a woman?

It was this reaction to the crime that inspired me to write Under the Radar.  Regardless of the abhorrent actions of Madsen, there is a portion of society who resort to blaming the victim, an extension of questioning rape victims' veracity because they were dressed in revealing clothes or under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  Should a woman's behaviour change because of how a man might react?  Should we go further and suggest women shouldn't step into a taxi alone, or go home with a man, or feel free to walk home on her own?  Should a woman ever feellike she has to behave differently to a man?

It may be coincidence, but only a year before, a recording of the future President of the United States was released with him bragging about how he approached women and that, because he was famous, he 'can do anything.  Grab 'em by the pussy.  You can do anything.'

The Bread & Roses Theatre
68 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham SW4 6DZ, London

Ticket purchases are non refundable. Concession prices apply to students; under 18s; pensioners; those on disability and unemployment benefits; Equity, BECTU & SDUK members; Portico Places cardholders. As a young venue we are still upgrading and developing the space, any additional donations are much appreciated and will be used towards improving the theatre even further and keeping the venue going in the long-term.

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