Antic Face Announces UK Premiere of Jen Silverman's COLLECTIVE RAGE

Antic Face and Nik Holttum Productions today announce the UK première of award-winning American Playwright Jen Silverman's play Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties. Following the critically acclaimed run of School Play last year, Antic Face and Nik Holttum Productions return to Southwark Playhouse with this joyously anarchic new show. Collective Rage opens on 29 January, with previews from 24 January and runs until 17 February.

Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty's busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. Meanwhile, Betty decides to stage a production of that play-within-a-play from...what's it called again? Summer's Midnight Dream?

In Collective Rage the lives of five very different New York women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex and "theat-ah". As they meet, fall in love, rehearse, revel and rage, they realise that they've been stuck reading the same scripts for far too long.

Hitting the ring with an electrifying soundtrack, looks to kill and spectacular routines, this outrageous comedy packs the punch to shatter lacquered femininity into a thousand glittering pieces. Strongly influenced by cabaret and female drag, this exquisite rejection of shame and stereotype will punch you in the gut, break your heart and then take you dancing.

Jen Silverman is a New York-based playwright and writer. Born in the U.S., she was raised across the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Her theatre work includes The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre premiere, off-Broadway with The Playwrights Realm, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist); The Roommate (Actor's Theatre of Louisville world premiere, produced widely across the U.S. including productions at South Coast Rep and Williamstown Theatre Festival, upcoming at Steppenwolf); Phoebe in Winter (Off-off Broadway with Clubbed Thumb); The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane (InterAct Theatre: Barrymore Award, Steinberg Award citation); Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties (Woolly Mammoth premiere, The Theater @ Boston Court); and All the Road Home (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park premiere).

Jen is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, an affiliated artist with Space on Ryder Farm, and has developed work with New York Theatre Workshop, The Ground Floor Residency at Berkeley Rep, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She's a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Award, an LMCC Fellowship, and the Yale Drama Series Award. She was the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark.

Charlie Parham directs. For Antic Face his credits include School Play (Southwark Playhouse) For Those Who Cry When They Hear the Foxes Scream (Tristan Bates Theatre) and Hippolytos (V&A). Other theatre credits include Two Gentlemen of the Hollow Heart (RADA Festival) Hamlet (National Theatre of Nice), Measure for Measure (America tour, Jackson's Lane), King Lear (Europe tour, Tristan Bates), As You Like It (Edinburgh Fringe Festival/The Lion and Unicorn), Sophie Scholl (ADC, also adapted by Parham), Ivanov, Waiting for Godot, The Priory, Arcadia, True West and DNA (ADC). He is a performer in drag super troupe DENIM (Soho Theatre, Underbelly), which has played at festivals worldwide including Glastonbury and a recently acclaimed run in Edinburgh. His directorial screen debut, Nightstand (Peccadillo Pictures), showed at UK cinemas and festivals worldwide, and he is in post production for his latest short, Full English. Parham is also developing further ?lm work and a co-adaptation of Lars von Trier's Melancholia for stage, as a director and writer. A member of the Soho Theatre Writer's Lab, he has written for the touring monologue series HIV Voices. Parham also recently assisted Creative Director Coky Giedroyc on The Sound of Music Live for ITV and has directed musical galas at the Arts Theatre West End.

antic|face
Antic Face was founded by Co-Artistic Directors Emma Hall and Charlie Parham. The company was formed with twin aims: to redress a gender imbalance that persists in all fields of theatre; and to provide a collaborative platform for young people seeking to enter the profession in any capacity. With a strong focus on the text, the company is committed both to revisiting the classics and bringing them to a young audience, and to promoting new writing. Hippolytos (for which Emma Hall received an Ian Charleson Award nomination) was the company's sell-out debut production, launched and performed deep in the underbelly of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Its production of For Those Who Cry When They Hear The Foxes Scream (OFFIE Nominee, Most Promising Playwright) played at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden to critical acclaim. This was paired with the company's highly popular festival of new talent, Second Half, which brought queer and experimental film, music, comedy, readings and discussions to new audiences giving a platform to over 50 emerging creatives. Most recently, the company staged the world première of School Play (OFFIE Nominee, Most Promising Playwright) by debut playwright Alex MacKeith - supported by Arts Council England and published by Oberon Books. An urgent drama about what it means to be a teacher in contemporary Britain, the play was lauded by critics and audiences alike for its vital and honest portrayal of the education system.

Nik Holttum Productions
Nik Holttum is a freelance producer of visual arts and theatre. Nik most recently co-produced School Play by Alex McKeith at Southwark Playhouse and This Much by John Fitzpatrick at Soho Theatre. Nik was also Associate Producer on Bug, Unfaithful and Fool For Love at Found111. In film Nik has finished post production on Jellyfish a feature film starring Liv Hill, Sinead Matthews and Cyril Nri. Other film producing projects include Rate Me by Fyzal Boulifa (Illy Prize Best Short at Directors Fortnight Cannes 2015) and Say Nothing by Roland Kennedy (First Prize Directors Choice Rhode Island).

Learn more at www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.

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