Monkeywood Theatre

Sarah and Marie Critchley from Maine Road will play mother and daughter again at The Lowry this week in Northface Theatre’s Be My Baby. Written by Amanda Whittington, the play is directed by Jason Hudson who recently directed Last Orders by Monkeywood for the Royal Exchange’s PUB season.

Be My Baby runs from Fri 8 – Sun 10 January 2010 – get your tickets online at The Lowry fast as they’re almost all sold out!

Set in 1964, Be My Baby follows the fortunes of Mary Adams (Sarah McDonald Hughes), aged 19 and seven months pregnant. Sent to a mother and baby home, Mary and her fellow inmates have to cope with the shame of their pregnancy and the dawning realisation they must give up their baby for adoption. Yet despite the daily battles with a no-nonsense Matron, the girls’ effervescence shines through. As they escape into the girl-groups songs they love, a touching and funny piece of work unfolds, which is not only punctuated but defined by the songs of the day.

…on Friday 15 January 2010 to hear Maine Road the radio play written by Monkeywood’s very own Sarah McDonald Hughes. Sarah can also be heard as Jade, the role she debuted in July 09 in Monkeywood’s production of Maine Road, directed by Martin Gibbons for Manchester’s 24:7 Theatre Festival.

Monkeywood will perfrom the premiere of Last Orders tonight in the Royal Exchange’s PUB season in the Studio. We are hoping to extend the production to a full-length play for a possible tour in Autumn 2010.

…and an extra matinee performance on Sat 20 March has been added thanks to fantastic sales!

Maine Road at The Lowry

Monkeywood have announced new dates for Maine Road at The Lowry, Salford for Thu 18 – Sat 20 March 2010. Tickets went onsale overnight. The pricing is apex, so are £5 until those seats sell out, then £7.50, then £10 on the day.

Here’s the blurb…

Following the 5-star success of A Song for the Lovers, Monkeywood Theatre returns to The Lowry.

Already a hit at Manchester’s 2009 24:7 Theatre Festival, Maine Road is a Manchester story about football, family, bricks and mortar.

Leo loves football; loves City. Saturdays mean car-minding and listening to the match from the backyard. That is, until his world is bulldozed around him…

In  addition to developing exciting projects for 2010, Monkeywood will be finishing off 2009 by taking part in the Royal Exchange\’s Pub season. Written by Sarah, ‘Last Orders’ will see the familiar company from Maine Road take up their favourite positions – at the bar!

Last Orders will be performed by Monkeywood on Wed 2 December – watch this space for more info as it happens…

Another little taster of things to come…

PUB at Royal Exchange

Monkeywood will soon be announcing their new and very exciting project so watch this space.

The drinks are on us!

Francesca Waite has taken a step into the relatively unknown for her by writing her first solo script to be debuted tomorrow night (Wednesday 7 October 2009) at The Contact, Manchester. The play is for Verbally Challenged, the Contact’s monthly script-writing competition. Five writers are invited to follow a brief to come up with a ten minute piece of writing which is then turned into a performance piece in the studio space by a team of professional actors and a professional Director. The audience then vote for their favourite piece on the night and the winner receives £100 cash prize.

This month’s brief was: Write a ten minute script of a story spanning 10 years. Within the piece you must incorporate all of the five senses; sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste which the audience will directly respond to.

Verbally Challenged

Sarah McDonald Hughes has been selected as one of twelve upcoming writers to be mentored at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. The course begins in October, resulting in a play that should be ready early 2010.

The Twelve is an intensive playwrighting course aiming to identify and develop writers of potential. Twelve writers will be taught the craft of writing – from the principles of story and plot through to the structuring of scenes, the development of theme and the generation of ideas. By the end of the course, the writers will have generated an idea for a play and developed this into a storyline. They will then have a further six weeks to write that play. The course will be led by Jo Combes, Associate Director at the Royal Exchange, and award-winning dramatist Nick Leather.

Exciting stuff!

The Twelve