October 15, 2009

WRITE OUT LOUD
New Plays on the Dunedin Stage 

Play readings
Fortune Theatre Studio
Sunday 1st November 2009 1pm & 3pm
Tickets: $5 each reading door sales only
Afternoon tea will be provided.

Sunday 1st Nov- 1pm
The Middlemarch Singles Ball by Ella West

The Middlemarch organising committee of the singles ball realises all of the tickets have been sold to single woman who are expecting to meet real rural blokes. Panicking, they try to find some single men to come but all of the Middlemarch locals have been married off to women from previous balls. The only men the committee can find, unfortunately, are from Auckland.

Any resemblance to any persons living or dead in the Middlemarch community is purely coincidental. Aucklanders, however, are fair game.

Sunday 1st Nov – 3pm
The Marquess of Toodle Do by Paul Baker

It is November 1962. The Churchill family is grandly dysfunctional. Randolph hosts a birthday luncheon for his elderly father Sir Winston. There is unfinished family business. Randolph seeks the truth about the break up of his first marriage, while his sister, Sarah is determined to broadcast her entirely unsuitable new relationship. Winston is alternately belligerent and bewildered, and Clementine tries, and fails, to keep the peace.

A funny, sharp contemporary take on the drawing room drama, with a famous family splitting at the seams.

Write Out Loud was started in 2006 by Playmarket, who are New Zealand’s only playwrights’ agency and script advisory service. This year Stage South is presenting the readings in association with Playmarket.

In its’ fourth year, Write Out Loud continues to present great work by local writers. Plays presented in previous years have then gone on to appear at professional theatres around the country, such as Glorious by Richard Huber, which was first presented at Write Out Loud in 2008. Glorious has just finished a season at the Fortune Studio, produced by WoW! Productions and plans are being made for future productions in 2010.

Write Out Loud is also a chance for the industry to network. Co-ordinator Clare Adams from Stage South says, "We have worked hard this year to create opportunities for theatre makers and audiences to hear New Zealand work through our Read Out Loud series of playreadings. These have been a source for great discussion and debate on how to produce more New Zealand theatre. Write Out Loud makes sure we can see the talent that’s already in our own backyard."

Make sure you come along to these two contrasting works, that both demonstrate accomplished writing and characterisation, but have such different styles and subject manner.

Stage South is a collective of Dunedin based theatre practitioners. Made up of writers, directors, actors, producers and designers who work together to insure Dunedin audiences get the opportunity to see New Zealand work.

Stage South has been in existence for two years and is also running another series of

New Zealand playreadings- Read Out Loud. 

Stage South would like to acknowledge the support and guidance from Playmarket and The Fortune Theatre.

About the Playwrights

Ella West
Karen Trebilcock who writes under the pen-name Ella West, was born in Invercargill. She completed a BA at Victoria University of Wellington. Her first novel Thieves was published by Longacre Press in Dunedin in 2006 and it was a finalist in the 2007 NZ Post Book Awards the following year. Real Life, the final book of the Thieves trilogy has just hit the bookshop shelves. Although she has written short plays for children, while teaching drama, The Middlemarch Singles Ball is her first full-length play. Karen Trebilcock has been named as the University of Otago College of Education writer in residence for 2010. 

Paul Baker
Paul Baker is Rector of Waitaki Boys’ High School. He has a PhD in History and has lectured at the University of Auckland. He has directed many school productions in Auckland and Oamaru. His first play, Conscience, was about New Zealand conscientious objectors during World War One, and was produced at the Court Theatre.

Write Out Loud – your opportunity to see plays, fresh off the page.

Contact: Clare Adams 021 125 0413 / 03 473 7226