Insidious Baggage

Oswald Jenkins is a broken man.

Cast

Director  -  Gerald Maiello

Oswald Jenkins  -  Kevin Smith
Insidious Baggage -  Katie Allen-Smith
Chelsea Sutcliffe  -  Lyanne Thornton-Harewood
Denise Fielding -  Kerry Shadbolt
Shirley  -  Liz Weatherley

Director's Notes

For the past few months the company has met every Tuesday afternoon in order to devise, rehearse and prepare for today. The piece itself is entirely original, based upon individual experiences which were then developed into situations and characters. With the exception of a few key-lines which have stuck in our minds throughout the rehearsal process the performance is improvised. We hope that it gives a clear understanding of the distress, seduction and unpredictability of mental illness and will leave you thinking how desperate a situation can become, and how it's possible to communicate and overcome such feelings if we remain creative and determined.

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Butterflies and Lambs

An ordinary day turns into anything but when a lift breaks down in a London block of flats. No secret is safe when tempers and temperatures rise.

Cast

Director  -  Gerald Maiello

Janet   -  Liz Weatherley
Jacob Henderson  -  Kevin Smith
Sophia Bradford  -  Katie Allen-Smith
Sally Night  -  Lyanne Thornton-Harewood
Charlotte Brown  -  Kerry Shadbolt
Stephanie Watts  -  Jocelyn Woodley
Phantom  -  Sarah Bradwell

Music and Noises off  -  Gerald Maiello

Director's Notes

Often inconsequential events can seem innocuous and banal, beyond any further thought they deserve in the moment. How many things occur throughout the day without us giving a thought to them? Random events that seem to offer nothing to our understanding of a situation, purpose or meaning in life. We may give them a quick cursory glance before we nod-off, of a night. We may put them into a simple narrative to describe a much more significant event, but by-and-large these insignificant, innocuous and inconsequential events float away from us to form the fabric which things of more significance hang onto the following day.

So….

Let’s say a lift gets stuck, momentarily; an everyday occurrence, perhaps, somewhere in the world. Let’s say you get stuck with a handful of people in this lift who cope with such minor disruption in different ways; again an everyday occurrence. Let’s then say you start to hear voices, a voice, which gives you the impression that it knows your secrets, your fears, what shames you and panics you…. Not so everyday any more.

Butterflies and Lambs was devised over the past few months by the company, based upon our experience of a faulty lift about two years ago. As with our previous production it’s an improvised piece that has undergone rehearsals and character exploration in the style of Poor Theatre, but been left purposefully with a number of un-explored and un-rehearsed possibilities. We wished to explore the impact of individual psychological process’ in such a situation and the impact of shared stress within a confined place: at what point do we unite against a common foe, at what point do we abandon others for our own survival and at what point should we entertain the banal and everyday as a rich seam of understanding?

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Little Cuts

A disparate group come together to devise a play about self harm to take into schools. With Dave the director conspicuously absent, the actors struggle to form a cohesive narrative when self harm proves to be a difficult, and divisive, subject.

cast

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​Director - Gerald Maiello

Woman on Bench - Sara-Jane Moon
Cary Silvers - Katie Allen-Smith
Geraint Williams - Kevin Smith
Janice - Jocelyn Woodley
Polly - Kerry Shadbolt
Poppy - Liz Weatherley
Sam - Sarah Bradwell
Leesa - Lyanne Thornton-Harewood

Music - Rob Doran

Blue Pixie

The Blue Pixie, a decommissioned routemaster, sits in orbit. Her crew receive a surprise guest... and he knows about the whales.

(After three heavy hitting pieces we felt the need to let our hair down. We're ever grateful to Mark Crane from Theatre on Wax for the opportunity)

Cast

Director - Gerald Maiello

Engineer Bromet Vine - Katie Allen-Smith
WD40 - Jocelyn Woodley
Human Resources Officer Bob - Lyanne Thornton-Harewood
Suzanne Jennifer - Rob Doran
Captain Spleen - Kevin Smith

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​fragments

What happens when a group of strangers meet on a psychiatric ward? What are their stories? You wouldn't know just by looking at them......

cast

Director - Gerald Maiello

Trevor / music hall compere  - Rob Doran
Lily Baker / Linda - Kerry Shadbolt
Wilf / Albert- Kevin Smith
Athena / police officer - Katie Allen-Smith
Claire- Lyanne Thornton-Harewood
The Fisher of Men / police officer - Jocelyn Woodley
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directors notes

Fragments was our most ambitious project creatively as we set about exploring and using a number of styles. The idea behind this piece was to create a series of metaphorical scenes that highlighted a difficult and stressful situation that the character has lived, and continues to live through. Overarching these scenes was the framework of an acute psychiatric ward. We wanted the same level of confusion and distress that mental health causes either side of episodes of clarity and the Company drew on their own experiences of being a patient on a psychiatric ward. It was a 'bolt-on' style piece, both because it was so complex and so that we could fit it into a number of different locations and time requirements so scenes could be slotted together differently to the previous performance of the piece and so it could be tailored to each audience. As a Company we worked hard to incorporate the theories of Brecht, Artaud and Grotowski using our story telling skills and creativity to put together a production that was challenging to us and the audience.

Kevin Smith has since left the Company and we thank him for his commitment, enthusiasm, humour and inspiration. 

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​Monologues

Individual pieces communicating unique experiences

​cast

Director - Gerald Maiello

Sarah Bradwell
Jocelyn Woodley
Liz Weatherley
Rob Doran
Kerry Shadbolt
Lyanne Thornton-Harewood 
Katie Allen-Smith 
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directors notes

Monologues came at a difficult time for us as the Company was adjusting itself to ever changing dynamics. We have always strived  to develop a new production each year and decided that despite the difficulties that we were going through we were going to maintain that directive. This production had the most creative freedom as we decided each Company member would develop a monologue based on what they wished to communicate with an audience, either about themselves or via a character. There was no need to consider the trajectory of other character's, develop storylines as we have in the past or construct intricate dialogue for scenes and acts. Each Company member developed their own monologue, brought it back to rehearsal for constructive editing and then went away to develop it further. A broad range of themes were tackled, amongst them: identity, depression, suicide, poverty, loneliness, isolation, mania and voices. These Monologues were particularly well received and challenged during Mental Health Week last year which is always a sign of good theatre.

Katie Allen-Smith has since left the Company and we thank her for her dedication and energy.

​Robert Doran has since left the Company and we will miss his humour, creativity and his bottomless supply of props!

​sleeping dogs

‘Let sleeping dogs lie… but mother, tell the truth.’
 
Sleeping Dogs follows the intense disintegration of a family following the exposure of a lie that sits at the heart for them all; told by a mother, known by a friend, discovered by a daughter. What follows leads to an unravelling of relationships with potentially fatal results….

CAST

Director - Gerald Maiello

Alex Miller - Sarah Bradwell
Jenna Grayson - Lyanne Thornton-Harewood
Maisie Miller - Kerry Shadbolt
Maureen Pritchard - Liz Weatherley
Sheila Miller - Jocelyn Woodley
​Ted Fenwick - James Paul