Following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, the award-winning BLUSH now transfers to Soho Theatre before embarking on a UK Tour. Written by Charlotte Josephine and presented by Snuff Box Theatre, the team behind the sell-out, multi-award winning Bitch Boxer, BLUSH tells five candid stories about image-based sexual abuse and all its many victims. BLUSH is a slap in the face and a call to arms.
Blush feels like powerful and important theatre on an urgently contemporary issue (The Daily Telegraph).
This angry, honest and heartfelt piece seeks to encourage and broaden examination of how the scarcity culture in modern society is fuelling our shame, encouraging the destructive belief systems that we are not enough.
Daniel Foxsmith and Charlotte Josephine (who won a Stage Edinburgh Award for BLUSH) lead this fast-paced production, exploring why society has a desire to shame, what it’s the result of and how we allow this to happen. BLUSH shines a light on the secrets we attempt to keep in the dark, our fears of disconnection and our attempts to be part of the tribe.
The catalyst for the piece was legislation passed in April 2015 to make revenge pornography a criminal act. The law now makes it illegal to disclose a ‘private sexual photograph or film’ without the consent of the person depicted. Many people consent to the creation of an image but having it made public is a very different matter. While revenge pornography may have been the catalyst of Blush, the true focus of the work is shame.
Blush is essential viewing for anyone that owns a computer or mobile phone and, just like Bitch Boxer, it packs a heavy punch (What’s On Stage).
BLUSH is directed by Ed Stambollouian whose work includes Awkward Conversations with Animals I’ve Fucked and Old Vic 12.
BLUSH is presented in association with Sphinx Theatre and has been supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, Unity Theatre and Arts Council England.
Title BLUSH by Charlotte Josephine
Running time 70 minutes
Twitter @SnuffBoxTheatre, @sohotheatre, #BLUSHplay
Writer Charlotte Josephine
Director Edward Stambollouian
Designer James Turner
Sound Design Harry Blake
Lighting Designer Seth Rook Williams
Costume Designer Holly Rose Henshaw
Choreographer Polly Bennett
Producer Jake Orr
Dramaturg Sarah Dickenson
Cast Charlotte Josephine, Daniel Foxsmith
Notes Ages 16+ with strong language
Soho:
Performance Dates Tuesday 16th May – Tuesday 6th June 2017
Location Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE
Box Office Tickets are available from www.sohotheatre.com or 020 7478 0100 priced from £10.
How to get there Soho Theatre is located on Dean Street. The nearest underground stations are Tottenham Court Road (on the Central and Northern lines), Oxford Circus Street (on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria line) and Leicester Square (on the Northern and Piccadilly lines). The nearest rail station is Charing Cross.
Tour Dates:
6th – 10th June The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter
162/3 Fore Street, Exeter EX4 3AT
19th June Gulbenkian, Canterbury
Darwin Road, Canterbury CT2 7NZ
20th June MAC, Birmingham
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH
21st June The Garage, Norwich
14 Chapelfield North, Norwich NR2 1NY
22nd – 24th June Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol
The White Bear, 133 Street, Bristol BS2 0DF
Charlotte Josephine
Charlotte Josephine is an actress represented by Hatton McEwan Penford, and playwright represented by The Agency. She’s co-artistic director of Snuff Box Theatre. Graduate of the Contemporary Theatre Course, East 15 Acting School, Charlotte’s first play Perffection won a NSDF Commendation For Writing. Bitch Boxer won the Soho Theatre Young Writers Award 2012, the Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh Season 2012 and the Holden Street Theatres Award 2013. Bitch Boxer is published by Oberon Books and is performed internationally. Charlotte's new monologue Blue has been awarded the National Octagon Prize by the Bolton Octagon, where it’ll be performed in June. Charlotte has also recently won the BBC Screenplay First Award. Other acting experience includes Secret Theatre Company (Lyric Hammersmith), Phyllida Lloyd’s all female Julius Caesar (Donmar Warehouse) and Buckets (Orange Tree Theatre).
Snuff Box Theatre
Snuff Box Theatre is a multi-award winning collective formed in 2011 by Bryony Shanahan, Charlotte Josephine and Daniel Foxsmith. The company has produced four shows to date including Weald, Bitch Boxer, The Altitude Brothers and The Observatory. Weald was shortlisted for the Hodgkiss Award and the Yale Drama Series Prize and included a nomination for Best Actor in the Off West End Awards. Bitch Boxer won the Soho Theatre Young Writers Award, Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh and the Adelaide Fringe Award before touring nationally and internationally. The Observatory won the Ideastap/NSDF/Methuen Edinburgh Award and the Scottish Daily Mail/CDS Edinburgh Drama Award.
Edward Stambollouian
Ed trained on the MA in Theatre Directing at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His work has been seen recently at the Unicorn, the Arcola, Shoreditch Town Hall, Vault Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. He has an interest in new writing from the UK and North America and recently directed the world premiere of Rob Hayes’ Awkward Conversations with Animals I’ve F*cked. Ed also directs comedy, most recently working with standup comedian Joe Lycett on his UK tour; with the Invisible Dot on their Birthday Gala at the Hammersmith Apollo and with Youtube stars Dan & Phil on the UK and American tour of their stage show: The Amazing Tour is not on Fire. He was part of the Old Vic 12 where he directed Prince of the River at the Criterion Theatre. Ed has worked extensively as an assistant director in the West End, at the RSC and regionally. Ed spent a year working as associate director to Jamie Lloyd on his Trafalgar Transformed Season (Macbeth, The Hothouse, The Pride). Alongside the season he directed two Pinter shorts starring Joanna Lumley and Andrew Scott and the UK tour of The Pride with Mat Horne.
