Futures Theatre to Present OFFSIDE

Set in 1892, 1992 and 2022, this energetic, powerful production follows four women who live, breathe and play football. Whilst each of them faces very different obstacles, the possibility that the beautiful game will change their lives - and the world - is tantalisingly close. Written by performance poet Hollie McNish (Ted Hughes Award for Nobody Told Me) and poet, playwright and performer Sabrina Mahfouz (Fringe First award for Chef)

With punchy storytelling, lyrical poetry and dynamic physicality, Offside places the audiences right on the touchline of the game of a lifetime.

Caroline Bryant, director, said: "I'm so happy to bring this play back at this time to give it a final farewell, eight years after starting the research. It's been a joyful production throughout its creation and touring. Performing in the football stadium changing rooms is particularly exhilarating and rewarding. Working in the authentic football arena creates a brilliant triangle of equals. The artistic qualities of a great show interweave with the changing rooms unique atmosphere and are completed by the intimate relationship with the audience. Women's football is growing in popularity, professionalism and profile which I truly celebrate.

"The women's game has political foundations and today's players can continue to build on previous generations' activism for equality. As a company amplifying marginalised women and non-binary voices Offside is the perfect accompaniment to continue the quest for equity through the lens and power of football's rich traditions. So whether playing professionally, for fun or for the community football can bring come and support a company that continually strives for attitudes to change for women in sport and everywhere!"

Alongside this tour, Futures Theatre will be releasing a special one-off podcast episode in June 2022, 'Football Is Life', featuring writing from Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish and created in collaboration with Steppers WOC, a community group for women of colour of 40.

This one-off episode follows the hugely successful Fully Amplified podcast series which was released in 2021. Fully Amplified, which was co-produced with Reduced Listening, won a Silver Award at the Anthem Awards (diversity, Equity & Inclusion Category), was runner up at the International Women's Podcast Awards and is currently nominated for an ARIAS Award (Grassroots Category).

Podcast credits:

Original writing from Sabrina Mahfouz & Hollie Mcnish

Directed by Caroline Bryant

Sound Design Tom Adams

Performed by Danielle Henry

Co-Produced by Lisa Hack and Kai Stone for Bird Lime Media, with support from Katie Bilboa

Contributions from Steppers WOC

Company information:

Cast To be confirmed

Creative team

Director Caroline Bryant

Writers Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish

Designer Beth Oppenheim

Composer Tom Adams

Lighting Designer Dylan Tate

Movement Director Sarita Piotrowski

Patchwork Maker and Costume Assistant Atena Pou-Clavell

Production Dramatherapist Wabriya King

Stage Manager tbc

Video Designer Megumi Okazaki

For Futures Theatre

Artistic Director Caroline Bryant

Producer Amanda Castro

Web and social media links:

www.futurestheatre.co.uk | IG: @futurestheatre | Twitter: @Futures_Theatre | FB: https://www.facebook.com/futurestheatre | #OffsidePlay #SweatLikeAWoman

Running time: Approx 1 hour 15 minutes with no interval | Age restriction: 14+

About Futures Theatre

Futures Theatre, founded in 1992, is a London based charity that exists so that underrepresented women and non-binary people can live their fullest lives, amplifying their voices through theatre, engagement programmes and training. Using theatre they fight for equity and social change, bringing art to communities who are often socially or economically excluded from traditional theatre experiences. Futures collaborates with skilled artists to develop each project, creating opportunities for brilliant female and non-binary artists, addressing the under-representation of their talent in UK theatre and celebrating this untapped potential.

About Caroline Bryant

Caroline founded Futures Theatre Company in 1992. She has directed 22 productions with Futures, all built on research, consultation and collaboration. Futures have toured their work to diverse audiences across the UK in both traditional and site-specific spaces.

Recent productions include I'd Rather Go Blind by Somalia Seaton (Omnibus Theatre), Never Vera Blue by Alexandra Wood (Edinburgh Fringe) and A Cracked Plaster Sky by Kay Adshead (Omnibus Theatre). She also created Fully Amplified, an award winning podcast series released in 2021 which featured original work from Tanya-Loretta Dee, Ava Wong Davies, Abi Zakarian, Babirye Bukilwa, Marinella Mezzanotte and Alexandra Wood.

With Futures, Caroline has created in-depth engagement programmes enabling vulnerable women and non-binary people to develop their own creativity and to access cultural experiences.

About Sabrina Mahfouz

Sabrina performed her cross-genre show A History of Water in the Middle East at The Royal Court Theatre and is one of the inaugural writers in residence at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre for 20-21.

Sabrina has recently been called '[one of] our most interesting playwrights' by Lyn Gardner and 'theatrical dynamite' by the Independent. Her theatre work includes Chef, a play about an inmate of a woman's prison who is also a haute cuisine chef, which won a Fringe First Award and was nominated for multiple international awards; Dry Ice, her first play based on her time working in strip clubs, directed by David Schwimmer and for which she was nominated as Best Solo Performer in The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence; Clean, a play about three women who work in the criminal underworld, which won a Herald Angel Award and transferred from Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh to Off-Broadway in 2015.

She also wrote With a Little Bit of Luck, a gig theatre piece for Paines Plough with a live UK Garage score about a young woman's coming of age in 2001, which has been performed across the UK, including at The National Theatre and the Roundhouse and was adapted for BBC 1Xtra radio, where it won the 2019 BBC Music & Radio Award for Best Drama.

In television she is working in writers' rooms in the US and UK, and developing original work for House Productions, Moonage Pictures, Little Dot Studios and FX.

Sabrina is the editor of the critically acclaimed anthology The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write (Saqi Books), a Guardian Book of the Year and is an essay contributor to the multi-award-winning The Good Immigrant (Unbound), exploring her mixed heritage through the lens of British fashion. She won the 2018 King's Arts & Culture Alumni Award for inspiring change in the creative industries. Her most recent anthologies are Smashing It: Working Class Artists on Life, Art and Making It Happen (Westbourne Press); Poems for a Green and Blue Planet (Hachette Children's) and Sabrina Mahfouz, Plays: 1 (Methuen Bloomsbury).

About Hollie McNish

Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Glasgow and Cambridge. She won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir - Nobody Told Me - of which The Scotsman stated 'The World Needs this Book'. She has published four further collections of poetry - Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum and her most recent poetic memoir Slug...and other things I've been told to hate, which is a Sunday Times Bestseller. She has just completed a re-imagining of Sophocles' Greek Tragedy Antigone, published by Hachette. Hollie loves writing. Her poetry has been translated into German, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Japanese and French. She is a patron of Baby Milk Action.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

All venues are on sale now unless otherwise indicated.

Tickets for the football club dressing room performances are also available via https://www.futurestheatre.co.uk/

*ON SALE SOON*

Greenwich Theatre

Crooms Hill, London, SE10 8ES

Monday 6 June 2022

7.30pm

£15 (£12.50)

www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk | 020 8858 7755

*ON SALE SOON*

Leyton Orient FC (dressing room performance)

(The Breyer Group Stadium)

Brisbane Road, London, E10 5NF

Tuesday 7 June 2022

7.30pm

£12

www.leytonorient.com | Book at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/offside-leyton-orient-fc-tickets-316534161197

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Millbrook, Guildford, GU1 3UX

Thursday 9 - Friday 10 June 2022

7.45pm

£18 full/ £12 conc

www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk | 01782 717 962

Derby Theatre

15, Theatre Walk, Derby DE1 2NF

Saturday 11 June 2022

7.30pm

£12 full/£10 conc

www.derbytheatre.co.uk | 01332 593939

Tobacco Factory Theatres

Raleigh Road, Bristol, BS3 1TF

Tuesday 14 - Wednesday 15 June 2022

8pm

£16 full/£12 conc

www.tobaccofactory.com | 0117 902 0060

Midland Arts Centre

Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH

Thursday 16 June 2022

7.30pm

£19.50 full/ £11.50 conc

www.macbirmingham.co.uk | 0121 446 3232

*ON SALE SOON*

Willesden Library

95 High Road, London, NW10 2SF

Friday 17 June 2022

7.30pm

£7 full/ £5 conc

https://www.brent.gov.uk/libraries-arts-and-heritage/libraries

02089373400 |Book at: libraries@brent.gov.uk

Mercury Theatre

Balkerne Gate, Colchester, CO1 1PT

Tuesday 21 - Wednesday 22 June 2022

8pm

£12.50

www.mercurytheatre.co.uk | 01206 573948

The Place Theatre

Bradgate Road, Bedford, MK40 3DE

Thursday 23 June 2022

7.30pm

£TBC

www.theplacebedford.org.uk | 01234 354321

Rotherham Theatre

Catherine Street, Rotherham, S65 1EB

Sunday 26 June 2022

7.30pm

£10 full/ £8 conc

www.rotherhamtheatres.co.uk | 01709 823621

Queen's Park Rangers FC (dressing room performance)

Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, South Africa Road, London, W12 7PJ

27 - 28 June 2022

7.30pm

£12

www.qpr.co.uk | Book at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/offside-queens-park-rangers-fc-tickets-308860639487

Theatre Royal Plymouth

Royal Parade, Plymouth, PL1 2TR

29 June - 2 July 2022

7.45pm

£16 full/ £12 conc

www.theatreroyal.com | 01752 267222

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