NW6 New Writing Festival
4 – 9 April
Tricycle Launches NW6 New Writing Festival
Featuring 5 new plays in one week
Showcasing bold new writing at its home in Kilburn, NW6
The Tricycle’s inaugural NW6 New Writing Festival will showcase 5 brand new plays created by the Tricycle’s NW6 writers. These new plays will be presented as rehearsed readings in the theatre’s Baldwin Studio over five nights from 4 – 9 April.
Over the last year, NW6 has supported five writers – Hassan Abdulrazzak, Zodwa Nyoni, Chino Odimba, Sam Potter and Francis Turnly – to develop their long-term careers and creativity, helping them to progress onto larger stages. Since its launch in Summer 2015, NW6 has provided a talented range of playwrights with the crucial financial and professional support needed to take their work to the next level.
Based in NW6, the Tricycle is a local theatre with an international vision. Through scale of opportunity, commitment to talent and telling human stories without borders, NW6 is part of the Tricycle’s commitment to promoting a rich range of perspectives in British drama now, and for the future.
The Tricycle Theatre’s Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham said today: “This inaugural New Writing Festival is the exciting culmination of a full year of work for these talented playwrights. It’s been a great experience having these writers become a part of the Tricycle over the last year and to now be able to provide a platform for their ambitious new plays to be heard for the first time over five days. Each of these plays has a uniquely human story at their heart, waiting to be heard.”
Francis Turnly, one of the NW6 group of writers, added: “Taking part in NW6 this past year has been a huge benefit, sharing knowledge with other playwrights and having the opportunity to learn from theatre practitioners has given me the confidence to conceive bigger plays and be braver in my writing.”
All tickets to NW6 are £6 (£5 for concessions and Trike members).
By Zodwa Nyoni
Monday 4th April at 7pm
Dwight lives at home with Shirley, Daddy and Mummy
Don’t think because he’s the way he is, that he doesn’t understand.
Dwight wants Shirley, Daddy and Mummy and he’s not budging. Humour and grief move us between now and 1981, as this family fights for – and over – its most marginalised voice, Dwight.
Zodwa Nyoni is a Zimbabwean-born playwright and poet based in Leeds. As winner of the Channel 4 Playwright’s Scheme she was Writer-in-Residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. She has previously been Apprentice Poet-in-Residence at Ilkely Literature Festival (2013), Leeds Kirkgate Market (2012) and Writer-in-Residence at I Love West Leeds Festival (2010). Her plays/short plays include Nine Lives, Boi Boi Is Dead (Finalist for the 2015 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), A Letter To You, Tangled Roots, The Night Shift and The Povo Die Till Freedom Comes . Her work for radio includes Sonnets in the City for the BBC.
By Hassan Abdulrazzak
Tuesday 5th April at 7pm
Look at you, a big fella hunched over a little mouse. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?
Ken is a stem cell biologist and, if he doesn’t get results, he will lose his job, his home and his chance at love. And what’s worse, the lab mice have started giving him dating advice.
This Darwinian comedy about competition puts the cut-throat world of scientific research under the microscope.
Hassan Abdulrazzak is of Iraqi origin, born in Prague and living in London. He holds a PhD in molecular biology and has worked at Harvard and Imperial College. Hassan’s first play, Baghdad Wedding, was staged at Soho Theatre in 2007 to great acclaim. It went on to have productions in Australia and India and was also broadcast on BBC Radio 3. His play The Prophet was performed at the Gate Theatre in 2012. More recently he was commissioned by the Kevin Spacey Foundation to write Dhow Under The Sun, a play for 35 young actors, which was staged in Sharjah, UAE (Jan 2015). Other plays include Catalina, Love, Bombs and Apples and Lost Kingdom. His poems have been published in Snakeskin and in We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War. He has won several awards including the George Devine Award, the Meyer Whitworth Award, the Pearson Award and the Arab British Centre Award for Culture.
His comic monologue play Love, Bombs and Apples was selected out 114 scripts to be part of the PlayWROUGHT3 festival and was staged at the Arcola Theatre (20-25th July 2015) as part of the Shubbak festival. It will receive a further run at the Arcola Theatre in June 2016 as part of a UK wide tour.
By Chino Odimba
Thursday 7th April at 7pm
Yee silence deafens me. Insults me. Makes me want to draw blood.
What happens when you are missing from your own history? Generations of women sail their ship from the sea to the streets of London.
Like images from a book we have never read, this is a saga of mothers, daughters, grief and survival.
Chino Odimba was born in Nigeria and raised in London. She now lives near Bristol. Her work in both theatre and poetry has been produced across the South West and UK. Past work includes Women Embrace Two, An Ode to Adam, Rainy Season, RAAR Birds, I am Michael Gove. More recently she has taken part in an invite-only National writing group at Royal Court Theatre and been Writer–on-Attachment at Bristol Old Vic where she wrote His Name is Ishmael, which was performed as a rehearsed reading in October 2013. In January, Chino’s new short play ‘The Bird Woman of Lewisham’ was produced at the Arcola Theatre as part of The Story Project 2015. Chino Odimba is also a Writer-on-Attachment at Clean Break Theatre.
By Sam Potter
Friday 8th April at 7pm
The thing is Daniel. You’re 12 years old, you have your whole life ahead of you, you don’t have to be like this….Are you listening to me?
Over eleven years, Daniel tells the story of one boy’s struggle inside a system that doesn’t seem to have a place for him.
How can someone ‘succeed’ when the odds are stacked against them?
Sam Potter trained at Dartington College of Arts, Trinity College Dublin, the NT and the RSC.
As a director she has worked at Hampstead Theatre, the RSC, NT and Glyndebourne Opera. She was also the Literary Manager at Out of Joint from 2011 until 2013 and the Creative Associate at Headlong from 2013 until 2015.
Sam received a Most Promising New Playwright Offie nomination for her debut play, Mucky Kid, which opened at Theatre 503 in 2013.
In 2015 Sam was Papatango’s Resident Playwright, supported by the BBC Performing Arts Fund, and was also awarded a place on the 2015 Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme.
She is currently writing plays for Papatango, Headlong, Oxford Drama School and the Tricycle.
By Francis Turnly
Saturday 9th April at 7pm
Hello Kitty is not a cat.
When she inherits a house from her mysterious grandmother, Japanese schoolgirl Hana is uprooted to Aokigahara forest.
Encountering lying relatives, ancient traditions and a cat demon, horror-film obsessed Hana must escape a family curse. But the forest doesn’t intend to let her go.
Francis Turnly is a playwright, radio dramatist and screenwriter. His stage plays have been produced at numerous theatres including the Birmingham Rep (A Samurai In Soho), Courtyard Theatre, Jackson’s Lane and Watford Palace and his work included on schemes such as the National Theatre’s Directors Week, Moonstone, and “the 50” (collaboration between BBC Drama and Royal Court). He has written several afternoon plays including the original detective drama, Hinterland for BBC Radio 4. He is developing original scripts for television. In 2014 Francis was awarded the Channel 4 Playwright in Residence, joining the Tricycle Theatre for a residency throughout 2015.
Francis hails from Northern Ireland but lives in London.