Burning Coal Theatre Company Presents THE CONTAINER

Burning Coal Theatre Company, in a collaboration with Raleigh's Contemporary Art Museum, will open its 23rd season with Clare Bayley's The Container, October 10 - 27, 2019 at CAM/Raleigh, 409 W. Martin Street, Raleigh, NC. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays, October 10 - 12, 17 - 19 and 24 - 26 at 7 pm and 9 pm and Sundays, October 13, 20 and 27th at 2 pm and 4 pm. Tickets are $25, $20 (Seniors 65+) and $15 (students, teachers, active military). All Thursday night tickets are also $15. Tickets and further information may be obtained at https://burningcoal.org/the-container-by-clare-bayley/ or by calling 919.834.4001. Audio described performances available upon request with two weeks advanced notice and student rush tickets (if available) at curtain for $5. Sunday, October 13th at 2 pm is Pay What You Can performance.

This immersive production invites the audience to journey with five individuals as they escape their war-torn countries, determined to secure a safe future in the West. As each character is revealed, they discover that the similarities among them outweigh the differences.

Written by English playwright Clare Bayley (Blue Sky), The Container concerns five immigrants trying to get to the west. It will be staged inside a shipping container in the courtyard of CAM/Raleigh. The audience will be in the container with the actors, and will experience some part of their dramatic journey with them. Because only 20 seats will be available at each performance, there will be two performances on each scheduled performance date. The play runs just under an hour.

Clare Bayley is a London-based award-winning playwright. She writes for theatre, radio and film. Clare mentors playwriting students on the MA/MFA at Central School of Speech and Drama and teaches Creative Writing at Tisch/NYU in London and at London South Bank University. She is former theatre editor of The Independent. Her plays have been performed in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, USA, Australia, Mexico and Canada. Clare is a Royal Literary Society Fellow, based at University of East London. In January, 2016 Burning Coal and CAM/Raleigh presented the US premiere of her play Blue Sky.

"The real story -the story of what people have come from, what they have gone through to get here, and what they are confronted with when they do arrive is largely ignored" -Clare Bayley, playwright

Avis HatcherPuzzo directed The Royale for Burning Coal in 2017. She teaches at Fayetteville State and runs Koffee Dance in Raleigh will direct The Container. The cast will include Rimsha Azfal (Blue Sky), Lakeisha Coffey, Cheleen Sugar-Ducksworth, Holden Hansen (Inherit the Wind) and Juan Isler (Written on the Heart). Matthew Adelson (Ashe in Johannesburg) will design scenery and lighting and Christy Rose (Peter Pan & Wendy) will design sound.

Burning Coal Theatre Company is one of Raleigh's intimate, professional theatres. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and International Artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.

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