Controversial New Play PIG GIRL to Receive European Debut This Winter at Finborough

In a new production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre and originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant -- A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, and part of its Winter Season of 20 Premieres, the European premiere of Pig Girl by former Canadian Playwright-in-Residence at the Finborough Theatre, Colleen Murphy, runs at the Finborough Theatre, playing twelve Sunday and Monday evenings from Sunday, 11 January 2015 (Press Night: Monday, 12 Janaury 2015 at 7.30pm).

Inspired by real events. For eighty-five minutes, a Killer holds a Dying Woman captive in a secluded barn. Their names say it; there is noescaping the horrific conclusion. In the empty space on either side are the Dying Woman's Sister and a Police Officer. Their action spans nine years as the sister beats her head against a police force agonizingly slow to investigate the disappearance of marginalized sex workers. The play gives a fictional victim's story back to her as she fights to refuse the inevitable. It will not help her, but her heroic defiance gives voice to thousands of women whose lives or spirits have been lost to violence.

Pig Girl received its world premiere in November 2013 in a hugely controversial production at Theatre Network in edmonton, Alberta. It recently won Canada's prestigious Carol Bolt Award, sponsored by Playwrights Canada Press, the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, and Playwrights Guild of Canada, for the best new by a Playwrights Guild of Canada member that has premiered in the past year.

Playwright Colleen Murphy is the former Canadian Playwright in Residence at the Finborough Theatre where her previous productions have included The December Man (L'homme de decembre),The Goodnight Bird, The Piper, BeatingHeart Cadaver and Armstrong's War. Since 2010, Colleen has been guest playwright at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Canada and was Playwright-in-Residence at The Factory Theatre in Toronto in 2011/2012. Currently, as the LeePlaywright-in-Residence at the University of Alberta, Canada, she is working on three new plays, as well as libretti for new operas with composers Aaron Gervais and Andrew Staniland. Murphy's play, The December Man (L'homme de décembre), won the 2007 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama. Her large opera, The Enslavemant and Liberation of Oksana G, composed by Aaron Gervais, will be produced by Tapestry New Opera in Toronto in 2015. Murphy is also an award winning filmmaker.

Director Helen Donnelly is a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where she assisted on Almost Near, John Ferguson, Hostage Song and The Immortal Hour. Trained at Royal Holloway University of London with a MA in Theatre Directing. Direction includes includes Scumbags (Richmix), Corrections (Intermission Theatre), Far Away (Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast), About A Goth (Black Box Theatre, Belfast), Lead Astray (MAC, Belfast), Sitting Up For Michael (Northern Irish Tour) and Forgotten Footfalls (Ulster Hall Group Space, Belfast). Assistant Direction includesassisting Lynne Parker on Macbeth (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), Oliver Mears on Hansel and Gretel (Gaiety Theatre, Dublin) and Jamie Harper on The Return of Colmcille (Walk The Plank) for Derry/Londonderry City of Culture.

Olivia Darnley | Sister
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Accolade and The Rat Trap.
Trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.Other Theatre includes includes Accolade (St James Theatre), Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies (Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre and Broadway), Pride and Prejudice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow), A Marvellous Year For Plums (Chichester Festival Theatre), All My Sons (Apollo Theatre), Artist Descending A Staircase (Old Red LionTheatre), Hay Fever (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Arms and the Man (Salisbury Playhouse) Private Lives, Much Ado about Nothing and The Importance of Being Earnest (Theatre Royal Bath).
Television includes The Five(ish), Doctors Reboot, Titanic, Miss Marple, Doctors, Hughie Green; Most Sincerely, Agatha Christie - A Life in Pictures and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Radio includes Lost in Mexico and African Beauty.

Kirsten Foster | Dying Woman
Trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.Theatre includes Lennon (Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool) and Around the World in 80 Days (New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme).
Film includes Zoe and The Astronaut.
Television includes Critical, Law and Order UK, EastEnders and Lewis.

Damien Lyne | Killer
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include The Goodnight Bird.
Trained at Drama Centre London.
Theatre includes Way Out West (Hull Truck Theatre and Tour), Changing Rooms (Grand Theatre, Swansea), Of Mice and Men (Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury), The Heiress (The Mill at Sonning),The Pillowman (Curve Theatre, Leicester), Boy'sLife (Soho Theatre), Grave Gifts A.O.D (Theatre Royal Bath), Pride With Prejudice (Gatehouse Theatre), Tess (King's Head Theatre), The Hostage (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Hummingbird (Royal Court Theatre), King Lear, The Country Wife, The Merchant of Venice, The Venetian Twins and Love's Labour's Lost (Royal Shakespeare Company).
Film includes Surprise.
Television includes Hollyoaks, Is This It, Midsomer Murders, The Bill, Doctors, Harry Enfield, Neverwhere and Yesterday's Dreams.

Joseph Rye | Police Officer
Productions at the Finborough Theatre include Blackwater Angel.
Trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
Theatre in the UK includes The Public Eye (Brockley Jack Studio Theatre), Death Of A Salesman (Theatre Royal York), Death Of A Salesman (Lyric Theatre), Macbeth (Stafford Shakespeare Festival), Myopia (White Bear Theatre), The High Lady B (Traffic Of The Stage), Viva Espana (White Bear Theatre) and Forever Eve (Shaw Theatre).
Theatre in New Zealand includes The Birthday Party (Musgrove Theatre), The Pitmen Painters (Q Theatre) and Hyperion (Musgrove Theatre).
Theatre in the USA includes The Ruffian on the Stair (Lillian Theatre) and Loot (A Noise Within Theatre Company).
Film includes Life Is Hot in Cracktown, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, Alien Versus Predator, Living In Hope, Lovelife, Mean Machine, Born to Lose, Selkie, Blink, Ouija, Dead Wrong and The End of the Tunnel.
Television includes Field Punishment No. 1, EastEnders, Casualty, CSI New York, Midsomer Murders, Holby City, The Bill, Conan the Adventurer, Fame LA, High Incident, Nash Bridges, All American Girl and Crosstown Traffic.

DETAILS:

PIG GIRL
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED.
Box Office 0844 847 1652; Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk.
Sundays and Mondays, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 January, 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16 February 2015
Sunday and Monday evenings at 7.30pm.
Press night: Monday, 12 January 2015 at 7.30PM.
Tickets £18, £16 concessions.
Performance Length: Approximately 90 minutes with no interval.?

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