Complicite to Stage a Reimagined A PACIFIST'S GUIDE TO THE WAR ON CANCER
By: Stephi Wild Jan. 08, 2018
Complicité will stage a reimagined version of A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, its collaboration with performance artist Bryony Kimmings. Kimmings will lead the company in this reworked production touring the UK before performances in Australia.
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer
Complicité Associates and Bryony Kimmings
Written by Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel with Kirsty Housley
Music by Tom Parkinson
Directed by Kirsty Housley
Originally a Complicité Associates co-production with the National Theatre in association with HOME Manchester.
When performance artist Bryony Kimmings was approached by Complicité to create a new show, the invitation came from producer Judith Dimant - who had just received a cancer diagnosis. Never one to shy away from creating art from life, Bryony asked Judith if she wanted to make a production about cancer. What followed was a baptism of fire, and an unexpected journey into the 'Kingdom of the Sick' - following patients, meeting doctors and learning from world experts. What Bryony didn't know is how far into the Kingdom she would fall.
First seen in 2016 at HOME, Manchester, Exeter Northcott and the National Theatre, the production will be revived and re-worked for UK and Australian touring in 2018. Kirsty Housley, Co-Director of The Encounter and long-term Complicité collaborator will direct, with writer Bryony Kimmings performing in the production.
A Pacifist's Guide... will blow everything you think you know about cancer out of the water. This funny and moving show will look behind the poster campaigns and pink ribbons at the reality of cancer: newfound friendships, pain and death, mundane treatment cycles, hairlessness and scars...with songs.
Bryony Kimmings said "This musical began as a seed in 2014. So much has happened since its inception. A four year labour of love. It begins with Judith the producer of Complicité having breast cancer, it moves through two years following beautiful patients, me having a baby, Judith going into remission, some deaths and some huge life changes. All the time writing music! I wasn't able to be in the original production for tragic personal reasons so I am over the moon that I am able to step into it for this tour. We are thrilled to have had the time to reimagine and develop the musical since its first incarnation at the National Theatre, which we can't wait to share with audiences across the UK and Australia."
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, Complicité's collaboration with performance artist Bryony Kimmings will embark on a UK tour to Liverpool Playhouse, Northern Stage Newcastle and the Belgrade Theatre Coventry before touring to Australia.
www.complicite.org/APacifistsGuide
The Little c documentary film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-zjKY4wIwc&list=PLLEx0tB8K9bQ3GXLYEslY-7AUJIyWe2xA&t=21s&index=7
#APacifistsGuide
2018 Tour
Liverpool, UK - Playhouse: 26 January - 3 February?2018
https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer
Newcastle, UK - Northern Stage: 7 - 10 February 2018
https://www.northernstage.co.uk/Event/complicit-a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer
Coventry, UK - Belgrade Theatre: 14 - 17 February 2018
http://www.belgrade.co.uk/event/a-pacifists-guide
Canberra, Australia - Canberra Theatre Centre: 28 February - 3 March 2018
https://canberratheatrecentre.com.au/show/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer/
Melbourne, Australia - Malthouse Theatre: 7 - 18 March 2018
http://malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer
Sydney, Australia - Seymour Centre: 22 - 29 March 2018
https://www.seymourcentre.com/events/event/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer/
Performers:
- Eva Alexander
- Bryony Kimmings
- Gemma Storr
- Lottie Vallis
- Lara Veitch
- Elexi Walker
Team:
- Set and Costume Design Lucy Osborne
- Choreography Sarah Blanc
- Lighting Design Marec Joyce
- Sound Design Lewis Gibson
- Assistant Director Michal Keyamo
- Production Manager Niall Black
- Sound Operator Neil Dewar
- Stage Managers Adam Chesnutt, Osnat Koblenz
Original Costume Designer Christina Cunningham, Original Lighting Designer Paul Anderson, Original Musical Director Marc Tritschler, Original Choreography Lizzi Gee
The Little c film
The Little c documentary film tells the unexpected and untold story of cancer through the voices and stories of real-life cancer patients. It tracks these stories as they make their way from patient to stage as part of the 2016 production 'A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer'. The film follows the show's development from a coffee meeting in 2014 to a UK tour in 2016, and charts the creative team's efforts to bring a fresh voice to a difficult and loaded subject.
Watch it online for free on Complicité's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-zjKY4wIwc&list=PLLEx0tB8K9bQ3GXLYEslY-7AUJIyWe2xA&t=21s&index=7
Directed & Edited by Simon Eves. Produced by PLASTIK and Complicité
Bryony Kimmings
Inspired by the taboos, stigmas, anomalies and social injustices around her, Bryony Kimmings is a performance artist creating multi-platform art works to provoke change.
The work centres around outlandish 'social experiments' that Kimmings conducts with intrigue and wholehearted fearless gusto. Kimmings sets her sights on the impossible and unconquerable, and turns the unspeakable into the years' hottest topic - from retracing an STI to its source (Sex Idiot), to her boyfriend's depression (Fake It 'Til You Make It - Best Theatre Award Fringe World Perth 2015, Best Theatre Award Adelaide Fringe Festival 2015, Herald Angel Award Edinburgh 2015), to her search for positive role models for her teenage niece (Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role Model Fringe First Award winner).
Her work has toured across the world including: Melbourne International Comedy Festival (Australia), National Theatre (UK), Southbank Centre (UK), Lisinski Operahouse (Croatia) and Fusebox Festival (Texas).
About Complicité
Founded in 1983, Complicité is an international theatre company based in London led by Artistic Director Simon McBurney (OBE) and Producer Judith Dimant (MBE). The company has won over fifty major theatre awards worldwide. Complicité's recent work includes A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, The Encounter, Beware of Pity and The Master and Margarita. Alongside its productions, Complicité runs an extensive Creative Learning programme with recent projects including Like Mother, Like Daughter and Tea.
Complicité Associates is a strand of work that commissions and produces new work from brilliant theatre makers and artists, supporting them as they explore different ways of working. Performance artist Bryony Kimmings was the inaugural Complicité Associate, and A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer was its first production. The next artists joining the Complicité Associates are The Scotsman Fringe First Award and The Stage Edinburgh Award for Best Ensemble winner, The Wardrobe Ensemble.
Simon McBurney has created and acted in more than 30 productions for the company. His directing credits with Complicité include The Encounter, Beware of Pity, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin, A Disappearing Number, Measure for Measure, A Minute Too Late, The Elephant Vanishes, Strange Poetry and The Street of Crocodiles. Other directing credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture, All My Sons on Broadway and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino in New York. Opera credits include The Rake's Progress produced by Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and The Magic Flute and A Dog's Heart, both produced by De Nederlandse Opera and English National Opera in collaboration with Complicité. As an actor Simon has appeared in many ?lms and TV including: Allied, The Conjuring 2, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Theory of Everything, Magic in the Moonlight, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Last King of Scotland and JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy.
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