Finborough's 40th Year Opens With Athena Stevens' New Play, SCROUNGER

The first production of the Finborough Theatre's 40th anniversary year, the world premiere of Finborough Theatre Playwright in Residence and Olivier Award nominee Athena Stevens's new play Scrounger opens at the Finborough Theatre for a four week limited season on Tuesday, 7 January 2020 (Press Nights: Thursday, 9 January 2020 and Friday, 10 January 2020 at 7.30pm).

On the streets of Elephant and Castle, everyone likes to make speculations about Scrounger. She needs help, she must not be aware of the complexities of the world, she is sent from the demons to torture her mum... at least according to her Nigerian Uber driver.

Scrounger doesn't care. A successful online personality, she's got more power from her bedroom than anyone on the Southwark estates could dream of. She's educated, she's ballsy, and with a huge network of online allies, Scrounger is a woman who knows how to make change happen.

That is, until an airline destroys her wheelchair.

Inspired by real events and a lawsuit initiated by Stevens herself, Scrounger drives towards the realities of how Britain is failing its most vulnerable and the extreme cost paid by those seeking justice.

Originally seen as part of Vibrant 2019 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, Scrounger now receives its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre.

Director Lily McLeish is a creative fellow of the Royal Shakespeare Company, long-term Associate Director to Katie Mitchell on productions across Europe, and director of Fizzy Sherbet, a new writing initiative for women playwrights. She is currently opening While You Are Here by Eve Leigh, a new play for dance with choreographer Jonathan Goddard for DanceEast and The Place. Direction includes Schism by Athena Stevens (Park Theatre), The White Bike (The Space), Unlocked (Glenside Hospital Museum and alldaybreakfast, Bristol), A Colder Water Than Here, awarded the Origins Award for Outstanding New Work (The Vaults), Three Lives (Fringe Arts Bath), Housekeeping (Southwark Playhouse), Absence (The Young Vic), This Despised Love (Royal Shakespeare Company Fringe), Old Times (Artheater Cologne), Footfalls (Severins-Burg-Theater, Cologne). Recent work as Associate Director include Orlando (Schaubühne Berlin), Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (The Shed, New York), Bluets (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg), La Maladie de la Mort (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris), Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court Theatre), Ophelias Zimmer (Schaubühne Berlin and Royal Court Theatre). Based now in the UK and Germany, Lily graduated from the University in Cologne with a first class honours degree in English Literature and Art History, where she also trained with theatre company Port in Air.

To post a comment, you must register and login.