BLUE Will Transfer to Seven Dials Playhouse Following Edinburgh Season

Following rave Edinburgh reviews and a Fringe First Award, tension-filled two-hander BLUE, will transfer to Seven Dials Playhouse from 5th   - 30th  March. 

In this unflinching study of the very real and current issues surrounding policing both in the USA and UK, US based writer and actor, June Carryl deftly illustrates how a career ostensibly dedicated to the pledge to ‘protect and serve’ has become a magnet for those is search of power. BLUE is written by June Carryl and directed by Michael Matthews.

LAPD Detective LaRhonda Parker knows her colleague well. He’s a family friend and her husband’s ex-partner. But now he’s become the man who shot an unarmed Black motorcyclist at a traffic stop. 

In BLUE, newly promoted to The Force Investigation Department, Detective Parker’s first assignment is to investigate a 29-year police veteran, Sully. Initially she wants to believe him. But a disturbing revelation forces Parker to decide whether to protect “one of her own” or pursue an investigation that could up-end her marriage and her career. This play is a powerful examination of  the recent crises that has plagued policing both in the USA and UK. 

Threading the needle connecting authoritarianism, power, and policing has never been timelier. As a Black woman in America, Carryl was inspired to write BLUE by the seemingly endless stream of tragedy she saw on the news – and from the revelation that, while many on-duty police were terrorised during the U.S. Capitol Riots, it has since been confirmed that a number of off-duty police were amongst the rioters. 

The overwhelming fear of knowing that our police forces are easily corrupted is paralleled in the UK with the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer which resulted in the investigation and uncovering of misogynistic and racist failures in London's Met Police in 2021, and the shooting of 24-year-old Black musician Chris Kaba – who was not a suspect of any crime -  killed by a single shot to the head fired by an officer in south London in 2022 and resulting in a murder charge for the offending officer. 

Both these instances and more since, have resulted in stoking tensions between police and community. BLUE is Carryl’s response to the deaths of citizens – overwhelmingly often, Black citizens - at the hands of police that continue to hit the news with alarming regularity. 

BLUE shines a stark light on the ‘one bad apple’ attitude to police corruption and brutality, critiquing the culture that allows and encourages ever more Bad Apples, and transforms the role of modern-day police into a tool of authoritarianism. It is directed by Michael Matthews and is performed by writer June Carryl as Detective Parker, opposite John Colella as Boyd Sully. 

In focusing down to the microcosm of a preliminary investigation into a single police custody death, BLUE peels back the layers beneath the “police as protectors” assumption to reveal not only the individual lives lost and destroyed by police corruption, but also just how endemic the problem has become. 

Biographies

June Carryl (Playwright, Parker) was raised in Denver and attended Brown University where she studied Political Science and English Literature. Her plays include N*GGA B*TCH (developed at Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre and the Vagrancy), THE WRONGED PARTY (2022 IAMA Theatre's Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Commission), COLOSSUS (2023 Ojai Playwright's Conference, semi-finalist 2021 O'Neill Playwrights Conference), BLUE (2023 Scotsman First Fringe Award, Edinburgh Fringe Festival), FLORENCE & NORMANDIE (Playwrights Arena and UCLA, Diversifying the Classics) and GIRL BLUE (developed at CTG L.A. Writer's Workshop). Theater credits include Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret (Celebration Theatre), Gerty Fail in Failure: A Love Story (Coeurage Theatre), the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet (A Noise Within), A.C.T's Insurrection: Holding History, Berkeley Repertory's Civil Sex and Thick Description's Venus. Film and Television credits include: “Y: the Last Man,” “Helstrom,” and “Mindhunter.”

John Colella (Sully) is delighted to revive his role as Sully in BLUE, for which he and June made up the cast which received a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Selected Los Angeles theatre credits include 12 Angry Men and The Seafarer (Laguna Playhouse), nine productions at Ruskin Group Theatre including the world premiere of his solo show An Extraordinary Ordinary Man, the role of Miles, the Pinot Noir loving neurotic, in the original stage adaptation of Rex Pickett’s multi-award-winning story Sideways and in the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac as well as Aldo in Italian American Reconciliation. At Celebration Theatre, John performed in the musicals Cabaret, and The Producers, and at Theatre of NOTE in Niagara Falls. He appeared in Romeo and Juliet with The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra Hall) in Chicago. TV credits include “Family Guy,” “Brooklyn-Nine-Nine,” HBO’s “Silicon Valley” (recurring), “Hawaii Five-0,” “Criminal Minds,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “The Soul Man,” “Bones,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Will & Grace,” “NYPD BLUE,” “The West Wing” (recurring), and opposite HalleBerry in “Extant.” Selected film credits include The Chicago 8 and Hotel Noir, starring Danny DeVito. John played opposite Carla Gugino and Alexis Bledel in Girl Walks Into A Bar.

Michael Matthews (Director) recently directed the World Premiere of BLUE at Rogue Machine and then again at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Selected credits include: Matilda (La Mirada), Failure: A Love Story (CTG/Kirk Douglas Theatre). Laguna Playhouse: The Seafarer, 12 Angry Men, The Graduate (w/ Melanie Griffith), Billy & Ray, and End of the Rainbow (also with La Mirada). Funny Girl (3D Theatricals), Sons of the Prophet (LA Premiere), Psyche: A Modern Rock Opera (World Premiere) Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers (LA Premiere), Very Still & Hard To See (World Premiere). Celebration Theatre: Cabaret, Dream Boy (LA Premiere), Bootycandy (LA Premiere), The Color Purple, What’s Wrong With Angry? (LA Premiere), Take Me Out!, The Women of Brewster Place, The Musical (West Coast Premiere), Stupid Kids (LA Premiere), Beautiful Thing, The Bacchae. Broadway: Butley (Assistant Director). International: Sleeping Giant and The Bacchae (Edinburgh Theatre Festival). Michael is the recipient of 2 Ovation Awards and 9 nominations, 1 LA Weekly Award and 2 nominations, 2 NAACP Theatre Awards, 1 Stage Raw Award, 3 Joseph Jefferson Award Nominations, and is the recipient of the 2015 LADCC Award for Career Achievement in Direction.

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