Outside Edge Theatre Company Will Workshop LESSONS FOR DRIVING

Outside Edge Theatre Company has announced workshops for the 2020 Phil Fox Award-winning play Lessons for Diving by Silas Parry, and two finalist productions, Boomerang by Jack Stanley and Drift by Kristian Phillips which were awarded Special Commendations by the judging panel.

Lessons for Diving by Silas Parry, directed by Matt Steinberg will be workshopped 19-24 July, with showcase on 24 July and performed by Sebastián Capitán Viveros, Patrick McNamee and Dan Wolff. This will be followed by Kristian Phillips' Drift, directed by Matt Steinberg and performed by Tom Rhys Harries, workshopped 26 - 28 July with the showcase on 28 July; and finally, Boomerang by Jack Stanley will be developed 29 - 31 July, with the showcase on 31 July, directed by Jude Christian. Showcases will be at the Jerwood Space.

OETC is the UK's only theatre company and participatory arts charity focused on addiction. In 2020 they launched the inaugural Phil Fox Award for Playwriting, named after the company's founder who passed away in 2014. The prize was created to recognise original scripts by playwrights from all backgrounds and experience levels, tackling issues around addiction, with the winner awarded a £6,000 commission last November and mentorship from chair of the judging panel, Tony Award-winning playwright Enda Walsh, as well as this package of development support and a public reading.

Matt Steinberg, Artistic Director of Outside Edge Theatre Company, said today, "These workshops are an important next step for the Fox Award-winning scripts on their journeys to becoming full productions. I am so pleased that we can offer this extraordinary development opportunity for the three playwrights to collaborate with such exceptional actors and directors as they work towards the final draft of their scripts. By utilising the unique lived experience of Outside Edge's community participants and artists throughout the development process, the work on these three scripts about issues related to addiction with a team of professional theatre artists is a fitting legacy for our founding Artistic Director, Phil Fox, after whom the competition was named. This combination ensures that these exceptional three plays have the best possible chance of reaching audiences soon and that the three early-career writers are supported to continue refining their craft."

The 2020 Phil Fox Award for Playwriting was generously supported by an anonymous friend of OETC, The Carne Trust and Unity Theatre Trust. The workshops are part-funded by the Cultural Recovery Fund and an anonymous friend of OETC, and generally managed by Paul Virides Productions.

Lessons For Diving

By Silas Parry

Directed by Matt Steinberg

Stage Manager Zoe Leonard

A touching play infused with magic realism about two brothers trying to survive after their mother dies of an overdose. Younger brother Jo helps Danny with his new job as a drug dealer, but when a Mexican fisherman warns Jo about the predators circling Danny every day, their plans to stop his brother dealing go badly wrong. And as Danny's job spirals out of control, Jo is caught in his own battle with a giant, man-eating Humboldt Squid.

This is Silas Parry's playwriting debut. He has previously been selected for the BBC Writersroom and received a BAFTA Los Angeles scholarship to support an MFA in dramatic writing at the Rita & Burton Goldberg Department, TISCH / NYU. He is also a visual artist and has most recently exhibited at Contemporary Art Space Osaka.

Matt Steinberg is an award-winning artistic director, stage director and performer. His recent directing credits include productions at Soho Theatre, Shoreditch Town Hall, the VAULT Festival, Southwark Playhouse, Theatre503, Iford Arts, New Diorama and Toronto's Tarragon Theatre. His work as an actor includes productions at the Finborough Theatre, the Stratford Festival of Canada, New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre and Classic Stage Company. He was a New Generation Artist at Iford Arts, and was awarded Equity Charitable Trust's John Fernald Award for Emerging Directors, the Tyrone Guthrie Award from the Stratford Festival and the Christopher Plummer Award from Shakespeare's Globe Centre Canada.

Patrick McNamee has performed in Glass.Kill.Bluebeard.Imp (The Royal Court) and Touching the Void (The Lowry/Bristol Old Vic).

Sebastián Capitán Viveros is a recent Drama Centre London graduate, and his theatre credits include Sweat (The Gielgud Theatre/ The Donmar Warehouse).

Dan Wolff is a recent Guildhall School of Music and Drama graduate.

Drift

By Kristian Phillips

Directed by Matt Steinberg

Stage Manager Zoe Leonard

A darkly comic, tour-de-force solo show, about grief, and addiction, drenched in toxic masculinity. The 'dirty secret' of dependency plagues Roger in his small hometown in Wales and leads him to what may literally be a dead end.

Kristian Phillips is a playwright and actor from Port Talbot. Drift is his debut play, and it was developed and researched under the Tyfu/Grow scheme at Theatr Clwyd. He is currently part of the Hampstead Theatre's Inspire Group and Theatr Clwyd's Writer in Residence Scheme. As an actor, his theatre credits include Pavilion, Season's Greetings, Bruised (Theatr Clwyd), As You Like It (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre), Richard III (Almeida Theatre), Of Mice and Men (Birmingham Repertory Theatre/UK tour), The Alchemist (Liverpool Playhouse) and Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco (Tron/Traverse Theatre).

Tom Rhys Harries plays Roger. His theatre credits include The Seagull (Playhouse Theatre), Tumulus (VAULT Festival), The Pitchfork Disney (Shoreditch Town Hall), Dedication (Nuffield Southampton Theatres), Creditors (Young Vic), Four Play (The Old Vic), Mojo (Harold Pinter Theatre), The History Boys (Sheffield Theatres) and Torch Song Trilogy (Menier Chocolate Factory). His television credits include Suspicion, White Lies, Britannia, 15 Days, Merched Parchus, Unforgotten, Chewing Gum, Hinterland, Jekyll and Hyde, Under Milk Wood, If I Don't Come Home: Letters from D-Day and Parade's End; and for film, The Gentlemen, Slaughterhouse Rulez, Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire, Crow, Hot Property, Iron Clad: Battle for Blood and Hunky Dory.

Boomerang

By Jack Stanley

Directed by Lucy Morrison

Stage Manager Zoe Leonard

The repetitive cycle of addiction plays out again and again in this harrowing story about how long families can stand by whilst a loved one self-destructs. Simone and Tobias' co-dependent relationship is finally put into perspective when their mother returns to sort out her son. Touchingly witty scenes explore the dramatic twists and turns that families grapple with when addiction and deception repeatedly rear their ugly heads.

Jack Stanley is from South London. His theatre credits include Catastrophists (White Bear Theatre), Waste (Southwark Playhouse) and Laying Tracks (The Gregson Institute, Liverpool).

Jude Christian is a performer, writer, director, and dramaturg. Her directing credits include productions at Royal Court, Shakespeare's Globe, Gate Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith and Brageteatret, Norway. As a writer and co-writer, her work includes Dick Whittington (National Theatre), Cinderella (Lyric Hammersmith), and Nanjing (Shakespeare's Globe).

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