The Space Showcases Four Emerging Playwrights at Foreword Festival This Summer

The Space is providing four emerging playwrights a platform festival to showcase the world premieres of their work. Foreword Festival will present new plays developed through the venue's ScriptSpace programme, staged for a week each this June and July. At a time when it's harder than ever for new voices to emerge, The Space want to champion new talent and take risks.

The plays are Labyrinth Diet by Laura Horton, Look Who's All Grown Up by Abigail Chandler, Refuge by Katie Duncan and Misfits by Lekha Desai Morrison. In addition to being staged at the venue for socially distanced audiences, each piece will be livestreamed with recordings made available on demand for two weeks afterwards.

Artistic Director, Adam Hemming said:

"We've helped develop some exciting new work through ScriptSpace, work that we really wanted to see staged. Foreword was created to do just that. Since their ScriptSpace readings all four playwrights have been commissioned by us for different new writing events, which is indicative of the depth of our belief in their talent. A foreword is an introduction and this festival is another way for us to introduce the plays and playwrights to audiences. There are a couple of puns in the title too, obviously 4 new plays (four words), but we're also looking forward to what these playwrights do next. The plays are all very different but I think each of the characters go through a process, whereby they are looking forward too. It's a festival full of hope."

Labyrinth Diet

Written by Laura Horton, directed by Charlotte Everest

8th-12thJune

I'm supposedly an average size. If that's really the case though, why don't I feel it? If I'm average, why doesn't it feel more normal?

At a clothes swap party where nothing fits and no one understands chub rub, Louise feels like life won't improve until conditions are right, but who decides that? A comical and poignant play about self-acceptance and how it's exhausting trying to fix your own brain, let alone anyone else's.

Look Who's All Grown Up

Written by Abigail Chandler, directed by Ella Murdoch

15th-19th June

'I went from being too young for sex scenes to old enough to play a wife overnight. It's weird.'

Felix and Caitlin are child actors navigating the tricky transition to adulthood in the withering glare of public scrutiny. As they deal with mental illness, sex and finding their identity, can they help each other stay balanced? Or will they simply drag each other down?

Refuge

Written by Katie Duncan, directed by Jess Barton

22nd-26th June

Three women from different worlds find themselves living side by side in a women's refuge, where in order to become the authors of their own futures they must first let go of their pasts.

Trigger warning: the play contains reference to physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

Misfits

Written by Lekha Desai Morrison, directed by Bethany Sharp

29th June- 3rd July

A modern family comedy about Meera, a traditional Indian mother, with a status to maintain within her much-feared community steeped in old-fashioned values. To fit in, she sets out to find a bride via a dating website for her gay son Rajiv.

Meera's journey leads her to question her own and women's rights. Will she conform and fit in or stand up and be counted?

The 2021 festival has been made possible thanks to the Space's Culture Recovery Fund 2nd round grant.

Back in January 2020, the Space received over 200 submissions of early draft new plays. ScriptSpace offers feedback for each submission with a number of them selected for prepared readings and feedback sessions. Due to COVID, these were moved online, with 13 readings taking place between April and August. Thanks to the Culture Recovery Fund, the Space was able to re-open the ScriptSpace window and delivered a further 10 readings in early 2021.

To post a comment, you must register and login.