HighTide today announces programming for their 2024 season, which focuses on producing, nurturing and celebrating new writing in the East of England.
The season opens with a script-in-hand reading of Make Me, Molly Naylor’s comedy directed by Blythe Stewart as part of Norwich and Norfolk Festival on 16 May. This is followed by the world première of Martha Loader’s Bindweed – winner of the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022. Bindweed directed by Jen Tang and designed by Lulu Tam opens at Mercury Theatre on 13 June and runs until 22 June, touring to New Wolsey Theatre from 28-29 June before a run at Arcola Theatre from 9 -13 July.
In Autumn, following last year’s successful Halloween tour, HighTide returns with More…Ghost Stories by Candlelight written by East Anglian playwrights Tassa Deparis, James McDermott, Eloise Pennycott and Aisha Zia touring the East of England. It will be directed by Emily Ling Williams and designed by Mona Camille. 2024 culminates with HighTide Rising, the one-day play reading festival; this year, celebrating Marie Cooper, Clare Currie, Ted Marriott, Anoop Singh, Rosa Torr and Esohe Uwadiae - the six East of England members of HighTide Writers Group in Ipswich on 23 November.
Alongside this programming Playwrights East offers free, year-round workshops for writers to build their craft and network, generously funded by the Foyle Foundation. Also announced as part of the company’s creative writing in the community programme is Story Worlds, an intensive schools’ programme exploring storytelling through writing and performance. In this 8-week creative programme, primary school pupils build skills in literacy and performance and are encouraged to create bold new tales. The programme concludes with a celebratory sharing event at the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft.
Clare Slater, Artistic Director of HighTide, said today, “HighTide’s commitment to celebrating incredible work from the playwrights of the East of England lies at the heart of our 2024 season. It’s a privilege to be collaborating with so many amazing regional theatres to bring a breadth of exceptional new writing to audiences in the region and beyond. I’m delighted to be co-producing Martha Loader’s award-winning new play, and to be commissioning four more exceptional East Anglian playwrights to share brand new spooky tales of coast, town and fen this autumn.
With the Playwrights East and Story Worlds initiatives, I’m proud that HighTide will also continue to support and nurture new and young talent in the local community.”
HighTide’s Climate Dramaturgy Knowledge Exchange, funded by Cambridge University, continues across the year as the company continues its artistic practice of Climate Dramaturgy, supporting artists, staff and other organisations in the region to make climate-positive choices.
HighTide in partnership with Norwich and Norfolk Festival presents
MAKE ME
By Molly Naylor
Directed by Blythe Stewart
Part of the Norwich and Norfolk Festival
Thursday 16 May at 6pm
A script-in-hand reading of a new play by Molly Naylor
“The thing about teenagers is that they don’t know what they want. I’m here to help them discover what they want, and then make them achieve it. I mean help. Help them achieve it.”
Set in a struggling school in Ipswich, Make Me tells the story of Emily, a drama teacher with a saviour-complex, and the students she’s determined to save.
The commissioning of this play was supported by The Sir Peter Shaffer Charitable Foundation.
Molly Naylor is an award-winning writer and performer. She is the co-creator of Sky One comedy After Hours. Her plays include Stop Trying to be Fantastic, Lights! Planets! People!, My Robot Heart (UK tours) and Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You (UK tour, BBC Radio 4). She has performed her poetry and storytelling shows at festivals and events all over the world. Her third collection Whatever You've Got is published by Bad Betty Press.
Blythe Stewart directs. As a director, her theatre credits include Teenage Dick (Donmar Warehouse 0schools tour), Wonder Winterland (Soho Theatre), Work Bitch (VAULT) Skin A Cat (UK tour), Finding Fassbender (Edinburgh Festival Fringe). As an associate director, her theatre credits include The Crucible (National Theatre, Gielgud Theatre), Minority Report (Nottingham Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith), Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible is Going to Happen (Bush Theatre) and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (National Theatre, UK and Ireland tour). Stewart was the Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse between 2019 - 2020.
A Mercury Originals Production co-produced by HighTide and New Wolsey Theatre, in association with the Royal Exchange Theatre
BINDWEED
By Martha Loader
Winner of the Judges Award at the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022
Director: Jen Tang; Designer: Lulu Tam
Mercury Theatre, Colchester: 13 June – 22 June
Press night: Tuesday 18 June at 7:30pm
New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich: 28 –29 June
Arcola Theatre: 9 –13 July
Press night: Tuesday 9 July at 7:30pm
“Thursdays, curry night. Curry and a pint for a fiver. Go at five thirty, home by ten. Beat my mum up for a while. Bed by ten thirty.”
Four men convicted of domestic abuse offences meet each week to undergo a perpetrator programme. But as Jen, the new group facilitator, starts to make progress with the men inside the room, their lives outside begin to buckle.
Bindweed is a shattering and darkly funny new play about responsibility and rehabilitation, which looks at what can be done to tackle abuse at its root.
Martha Loader is a playwright, actor and producer from Ipswich. She is continuing her collaboration with HighTide in summer 2024 with a tour of her play Bindweed (winner of Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022), produced by Mercury Theatre, New Wolsey Theatre and HighTide, in association with Royal Exchange Theatre. Bindweed will be published by Nick Hern Books this year.Previous work has been presented by Mercury Theatre, Cambridge Junction, and INK. She is an associate artist of the New Wolsey Theatre (supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Film4) and is currently working on commissions from Menagerie Theatre Company, and the Almeida Theatre as part of the ‘Genesis New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme’. This year she has been selected for both the Channel 4 Screenwriting and BBC Voices schemes
Jen Tang directs. Her theatre credits include Further Than The Furthest Thing (Young Vic), Icon, K-Pop Musical (London Theatre), Gwei Mui/Ghost Girl (Camden People’s Theatre), Mountains (Royal Exchange Theatre, and UK tour), We Are You (Young Vic, British Museum), Clytemnestra (Gate Theatre), WANTED (West Yorkshire Playhouse), For The Record (Theatre Royal Plymouth), The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (The Drum, Plymouth) and Chasing Beckett (London Theatre).
A HighTide production in association with Eastern Angles and Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds
MORE…GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT
By Tassa Deparis, James McDermott, Eloise Pennycott and Aisha Zia
Director: Emily Ling Williams; Designer: Mona Camille; Composer, Sound Designer, Musical Director: Anna Pool
Ghosts don’t always stay in the past.
Following the sell-out success of last year’s tour, HighTide brings you More…Ghost Stories by Candlelight. All-new for 2024, gather close for a chilling evening of contemporary tales and music from the ‘Haunted Counties’ of East Anglia.
A Theatre Green Book production, conceived and made to reduce carbon impacts.
Tassa Deparis is HighTide’s writer in residence for 2024. Her theatre credits include Two Under Two (Virtual Collaborators Festival), The Daughter Abroad (Theatre503), This Wall (The English Theatre, Berlin), and Mothers Milk (ArtsDepot).
James McDermott’s plays published by Samuel French include Jab (Finborough Theatre), Time and Tide (Park Theatre, East of England tour) and Rubber Ring (Pleasance Theatre, UK tour - winner of Pulse Festival’s Suitcase Prize). His other plays include Ghosted (St George’s Theatre Great Yarmouth, Out There Festival), Robin Good: The Politico-Panto (Norwich Playhouse), Senseless (Norfolk and Norwich Festival) and the relocation to East Anglia of Mark Crawford’s Canadian comedy The Birds and The Bees (New Wolsey Theatre, East of England tour). For television, his credits include EastEnders.
Eloise Pennycott continues her collaboration with HighTide having previously presented new work at HighTide Rising 2023. She makes work championing deaf and queer perspectives, working with HighTide, Deafinitely Theatre, CRIPtic Arts. Her plays include Butterflies (Deafinitely Theatre Young Company) and Barrier(s) (Dorfman Theatre, Winner of National Theatre’s New Views competition).
Aisha Zia continues her collaboration with the company, having previously been a HighTide associate artist. She has been commissioned by HighTide, Hampstead, Fuel, Paines Plough, Curve Leicester, Contact Manchester and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She is a former resident artist at Somerset House Studios in London, Theatre 503’s 503Five, associate artist at the Foundation Jan Michalski in Switzerland. Her plays include Our Glass House (Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Winner of Special Commendation from Amnesty International) and No Guts, No Heart, No Glory (Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Winner of The Scotsman Fringe First Award, Women of the World Festival at Southbank Centre, Live from TVC Battersea Arts Centre).
Emily Ling Williams directs. Her theatre credits include A Playlist for the Revolution (Bush Theatre – Winner of Stage Debut Award for Best Director, Olivier Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre), Polko (Roundabout), Wasted (Lyric Hammersmith), The Full Works (Key Workers Cycle) (Almeida Theatre), Moongate Mix (Omnibus Theatre), Behind Closed Doors (Lemon House Theatre), Tell Me When You’re Home (Young Vic), Lucky Cigarette (UK tour) and Preach (Rose Bruford Theatre, Hoxton Hall). As an assistant or associate director, her credits include House of Shades (Almeida Theatre), The Apology, The Island Nation (Arcola Theatre), Blood Wedding (Young Vic), The Meeting and The Chalk Garden (Chichester Festival Theatre).
Mona Camille is a set and costume designer working in theatre, film and dance with a background in architecture. Her recent designs for theatre include Kim’s Convenience (Park Theatre), Milk & Gall (Theatre503), Harmony???? (Blue Elephant Theatre) and The Tree of Objects (Jacksons Lane Theatre); and for film Camaleonte. Her credits as an associate include A View From The Bridge ( Octagon Theatre Bolton, Chichester Festival Theatre and Rose Theatre), Henry V (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), Worth (Arcola Theatre, Storyhouse Theatre) and Raya (Hampstead Theatre).
She is also a multidisciplinary artist with artworks exhibited at the Seychelles Biennale of Contemporary Art 2022 and the Seychelles National Museum for the 2022 Festival Kreol.
Anna Pool composes the theatrical score for More…Ghost Stories by Candlelight. She is a British composer, performer and theatre director, creating work which connects people to where they live. Her music has been heard on BBC Radio 3's In Tune, Barbican's Sound Unbound festival, Iggy Pop's Radio 6 Confidential show, and Scotland's legendary folk fest, Celtic Connections. Projects for 2024 include Mother Trucker, a song cycle inspired by the stories of female-identifying truckers (Spitalfields Festival), a new adaptation of The Reluctant King for family audiences (Opera North) and performances at Secret Garden Party and Folk East. She is also the associate director for the cult classic musical, Little Shop of Horrors (New Wolsey/ UK tour) and musical adaptation of New York Times' bestselling novel, The Book Thief (Octagon Theatre Bolton/DEM Productions).
HIGHTIDE RISING
Play extracts from
Marie Cooper, Clare Currie, Ted Marriott, Anoop Singh, Rosa Torr and Esohe Uwadiae.
A one-day festival celebrating new plays from the East of England.
This year HighTide collaborates with Eastern Angles and the New Wolsey Theatre for a day of rehearsed readings, workshops, talks, and networking events.
HighTide Rising will present 6 extracts of new plays written by the inaugural members of HighTide Writers Group Marie Cooper, Clare Currie, Ted Marriott, Anoop Singh, Rosa Torr, Esohe Uwadiae. These writers have deep roots in the East of England showcasing the region as a seedbed of exceptional playwriting talent.
The HighTide Writers Group is co-facilitated by leading playwrights, Juliet Gilkes Romero and Tim Price.
Clare Currie lives in Great Yarmouth. She received Arts Council funding to develop her creative practice, culminating in her first one- person theatre piece Cold Snap – in collaboration with Jumped Up Theatre – which wrestles with the demands of motherhood, the ageing process and the joy of playing sport. She has written for Eastern Angles – Spilling Convention, The Trials of Mary, and Paines Plough – A Little Understood, was Peterborough Poet Laureate 2017-19 and is a founding member of Syntax Poetry Festival.
Esohe Uwadiae is a writer and visual artist. Her theatre credits include She is a Place Called Home (VAULT Festival), Sister, Sister (Pleasance Theatre) and A Lesson in Shrinking (Almeida Theatre). In 2023, her play Pots and Pans and Prayers was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and the Alfred Fagon Award. She has been part of programmes with the Royal Court Theatre, Almeida Theatre and The Old Vic.
Marie Cooper is a Norwich-based playwright, explores class, identity, and societal privilege in her work. Her writing credits include Abandoned Places (part of Spirit of the Place, Slow Theatre). In 2021 her short play The Jade Palace was selected for a live readthrough by The Literal Challenge. Cooper enjoys exploring a diverse range of themes, including technology, memory, loss, and social commentary, in her storytelling.
Anoop B. Singh is a British Punjabi writer who lives in Ipswich and works across East Anglia. Singh has long been fascinated with the characters, creatures and motifs of mythology and folklore. He creates socially and ecologically conscious narratives, interwoven with imagery borrowed from local ecology and nature. His writing is usually a synthesis of genres, bringing together fairy tale, horror, sci-fi and comedy, rooted in themes of identity, injustice, family and trauma.
Rosa Torr is a Norwich-based interdisciplinary writer, dramaturg, and producer. Her theatre credits include Gun to your Head (VAULT Festival), RATTUS RATTUS: the epic tale of man vs rat (Norfolk and Norwich Festival, National Centre for Writing), The Creation Station (First Light Festival), Sea Her (Directors Cut Theatre), Shapes (Extract) (Soho Theatre), Bump (TARA Arts, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Smock Alley Theatre, Waterstones), and Unnamed solo work (1-2-1 Festival, Battersea Arts Centre). Her radio credits include Creative Lives (various works) for BBC Radio. She is Associate Producer at Collusion, and Producer/Dramaturg with punk theatre troupe Dakota Collective who are shortlisted for Edinburgh Untapped Award (New Diorama Theatre/Underbelly), 2024 and shortlisted for Charlie Hartill Award (Pleasance Theatre) 2024.
Ted Marriott is a writer and performer from Suffolk based in West London. He is an alumnus of The Old Vic Theatre Makers, the Bush Theatre Emerging Writer’s Group and received a year’s mentorship in scriptwriting from Arts Emergency. Marriott’s writing is particularly inspired by Tennessee William’s Plastic Theatre form, and he’s interested in scripts that explore society’s relationship to history, temporalities, space, and politics. Alongside his solo writing, he is a theatre-maker with the emerging theatre company Five Pigeons Pecking a Bin Bag.
Tim Price’s plays include Nye (Theatr Clwyd, National Theatre), Protest Song (National Theatre) For Once, Salt Root and Roe (Trafalgar Studios), Demos, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (National Theatre Wales), I'm With the Band (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, St James Theatre), and Teh Internet Is Serious Business (Royal Court Theatre). He is associate playwright at the Traverse theatre and co-founder of Welsh new writing company Dirty Protest.
Juliet Gilkes Romero’s theatre credits include The Whip (Royal Shakespeare Company, Swan Theatre), The Gift, 15 Heroines: The Labyrinth (Jermyn Street Theatre), Day of the Living (The Other Palace), Uppercut (Southwark Playhouse), At the Gates of Gaze (Birmingham Rep and UK tour), and Bilad Al-Sudan (Kiln Theatre). Her television credits include Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle. She is currently under commission with Neal Street Productions, Royal Shakespeare Company, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and Synergy Theatre.
HighTide: 01473459200 hightide.org.uk
MAKE ME
Thursday 16 May at 6pm
Hewett Academy, Norwich
Run time: 90mins, followed by a Q&A with Molly and the company
Tickets: £7.50
BINDWEED
Mercury Theatre, Colchester
13 – 22 June
Press night: Tuesday 18 June at 7:30pm
Tickets from £10
Box office: https://www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/ / 01206 573948
New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich
28 –29 June
Box office: https://www.wolseytheatre.co.uk/ / 01473 295900
Arcola Theatre
9 –13 July
Press night: Tuesday 9 July at 7:30pm
On sale: Friday 22 March at 12pm
Box office: https://www.arcolatheatre.com/ / 020 7503 1646
MORE…GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT
Touring across the east of England in Autumn 2024
HIGHTIDE RISING
23 November 2024
Further details to follow
