We are incredibly proud to introduce you to our Autumn Fringe Theatre Season!
SHOW 1: A COMPLEX WHOLE BY RORY GREIG
A Complex Whole is a 3 hander play exploring expectation and introspection. The next stage of Alex’s life is not going to plan, their bike got nicked and their best friend possibly has depression. However they are so engrossed in their own mythos and a deep desire to feel they are ‘winning’ at life, that they’re unable to acknowledge it, until circumstance forces them to. As the pressure on Alex to correct their course mounts, the play slowly begins to float away from the natural world. It becomes increasingly impressionistic and abstract as, daunted by impending adulthood, Alex struggles to decide whether it’s the world that needs to change or themself.
N.B The character of Alex and all other characters will be cast gender blind, hence the use of ‘they’ pronouns.
SHOW 2: BIRTHDAY GIRL BY ROSA GATLEY
tonight, you are nineteen years old. almost twenty. in fact, you have about forty five minutes left before it’s your birthday, and you have to kiss your teenage years goodbye.
this is a play about birthdays. it’s also about growing up, and the future, and the inevitability of ageing — a prospect that you are finding increasingly unnerving. for forty five minutes, we get to see inside the head of a the otherwise unnamed birthday girl. we know only her age and that it is her birthday — other than that, this girl could be anyone. possibly even you.
at its heart, ‘birthday girl’ confronts fears of the future and how scary it feels sometimes to grow older. it talks about birthdays, mixing together various anecdotes of birthdays past and highlighting how important these milestones are: for example, your seventeenth birthday when you threw a massive house party and the girl you liked told you she liked you back. your ninth; an epic safari party that made all the kids in your year jealous. all the way back to the day you were born.
accompanied by a cracking karaoke soundtrack of everyone’s most favourite birthday hits, it’s time to step towards the future and join the party. happy twentieth birthday!
SHOW 3: ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST BY DARIO FO (FRESHERS PLAY 1)
Accidental Death of an Anarchist, a play by Italian playwright Dario Fo, is based loosely on real-life events involving the Italian rail worker and anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli, who died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody in 1969. Pinelli, accused of the notorious Piazza Fontana bombing, was cleared of the charges after his death. The events that led to Pinelli’s death have never been revealed, and Fo’s intention is to depict a fictionalized version of the aftermath, through the actions of a scheming con man known only as the Maniac. The play explores themes of political corruption, repression, the nature of truth versus illusion, class struggle, and the conflict between reformers and revolutionaries. Accidental Death of an Anarchist is Fo’s most acclaimed and famous play, having been staged across the world since its premiere in Milan in 1970.
SHOW 4: BUNDLE OF JOY?
XX and XY have been in a relationship for some time and are getting to the point in their lives when the world expects them to grow up, get married and have children. With society’s aggressive patriarchal system indoctrinating them into the belief that compliance is the only way forward, the only way to live XX tumbles into obsession, suffering and mental disarray. The need to, the expectation to, the demand to procreate weighs heavy on their relationship pushing them together and apart, isolating XX and reflecting the gender bias still so heavily apparent. Why won’t her body work? Why doesn’t it make sense? Why is it her responsibility? Why does no one understand? XX is alone in her decision, and faced with the choice to comply or survive she journeys along the line of fulfilling her wants and those of the world around her.
SHOW 5: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?
What Does it Mean to You? Is a collaborative and devised piece that will delve into Manchester’s vast history of clubbing, raving and music! We hope to explore what did this culture mean to young people in Manchester in the past, and what does it mean to young people today! We are looking for anyone interested in music, clubbing, raving, anyone from Manchester itself, anyone who identifies as queer/is part of the LGBTQ+ community as well as people interested in spoken word, songwriting, dance, rap and also people who can DJ!!
SHOW 6: I DON’T FEEL ANYTHING
Three young people tell us they don’t feel anything. They don’t feel so that they can cope. They don’t feel because they’ve been told that they can’t. But through dance and connection, they find a way to feel.
The piece dips in and out of monologues from each character, where we see intimate glimpses into their lives.
SHOW 7: DEATH OF AN AUTHOR
The play presents itself as a traditional murder-mystery piece, when an unnamed male writer is found dead in his mansion. Yet we quickly realise that the suspects are quite out of the ordinary: they are all female literary characters written by men, who have somehow been robbed of a proper narrative or whose character development has been exploited. When a mysterious detective figure shows up to handle the investigation, we get to know each one of the characters both singularly and together; each of them has been ‘killed’ by a male author and here they regain power over their narrative as we navigate the stories they were written in and the ones that they have yet to tell.
SHOW 8: DEVISED PIECE EXPLORING ‘THE EMOTION OF JOY’ (FRESHERS PLAY 2)
With this freshers play’s working title currently being ‘Exploring Joy’ this will be a devised piece that will look into the themes, ideas and their response to what ‘joy’ means to them. This show will be a fantastic experience for multidisciplinary creatives. As a collective this group of freshers will partake in a variety of workshops (from movement to free writing) created by the creative team and will then create a production at the end of the process to be performed. This show is meant to be playful, expressive and experimental so if you are an actor/musician, actor/writer or consider yourself/intrigued by the idea of being a multidisciplinary artist definitely audition for this show!
AUDITIONS
To view the audition extracts check out our social media on Thursday morning!
THE FIRST ROUND OF AUDITIONS WILL BE HELD ON THURSDAY 7th OCT & FRIDAY 8th OCT FROM 18:00 – 21:00 ! ALL AUDITIONS WILL BE IN THE MARTIN HARRIS CENTRE.
AUDITION GROUPS
GROUP 1 – Birthday Girl, Bundle Of Joy?, I Don’t Feel Anything
GROUP 2 – Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, A Complex Whole
GROUP 3 – What Does It Mean To You?, FRESHERS: JOY
GROUP 4 – Death Of An Author
THURSDAY
GROUP 1 = SU14 (18:00-21:00)
GROUP 2 = SU15 (18:00-21:00)
GROUP 3 = F20 (18:00-19:00), G16 (19:00-21:00)
GROUP 4 = GREEN ROOM (18:00-21:00)
FRIDAY
GROUP 1 = SU14 (18:00-21:00)
GROUP 2 = SU15 (18:00-21:00)
GROUP 3 = F20 (18:00-21:00)
GROUP 4 = GREEN ROOM (18:00-21:00)
(Second round of auditions will be held on Saturday and Sunday and the creative teams will get in touch with you and provide you with the necessary information if you have a recall!)
We are so excited for this upcoming season and we hope you are too!
UOM Drama Soc 