Image by Rupert Jessop
We are excited to welcome George Spender to the helm as guest editor of the next three issues of Visual Verse. George is the senior editor of Oberon Books (https://www.oberonbooks.com/) , an independent publisher in London specialising in theatre and performance.
Dear writers, readers and friends,
It’s July, and that means it’s rehearsal time for the biggest arts festival in the world. Thousands of writers, directors and performers are preparing to swarm to Scotland for the Edinburgh festival, hoping that their show will achieve critical acclaim, transfer to a major theatre, or if they’re really lucky, just about break even. Official figures for the 2016 festival list 50,266 performances of 3,269 shows taking place in 294 venues, so we are expecting big things in 2017. To mark the release of the festival programme in July, we have created a playwright special. We start with a visual prompt from photographer Rupert Jessop (http://www.rupertjessop.com/) whose fabulously whimsical scenes are full of drama and narrative. In response to the image we have four remarkable playwrights, taking us into a new genre of writing for Visual Verse.
Our lead writer is playwright and poet Glyn Maxwell (http://glynmaxwell.com/) . Glyn has long been regarded as one of Britain’s major poets, but is also an accomplished playwright, with several of his plays having been staged in the UK and USA, including Liberty, which premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe. His adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, The Beggar’s Opera, Cyrano De Bergerac and Wind in the Willows were staged at Chester’s new theatre Storyhouse. In 2012 Glyn published the acclaimed On Poetry, which considered the art through the eyes of four imaginary students. The imaginative, ‘sequel’ Drinks With Dead Poets: The Autumn Term, was published in 2016, with a paperback edition out later this year.
Our second playwright is Rita Kalnejais (https://www.oberonbooks.com/rita-kalnejais.html) . Originally from Australia, Rita worked as an actor before turning to writing. Rita was a resident playwright at Sydney Theatre Company in 2011/12. Her play for Soho theatre in London, First Love Is The Revolution premiered in 2015, and followed the story of a teenage urban fox falling in love with a teenage urban boy. The Evening Standard described it as ‘a cult hit in the making’. Her phenomenal play This Beautiful Future (http://www.theyardtheatre.co.uk/2017/04/writer-rita-kalnejais-on-this-beautiful-future/) , which premiered at the Yard Theatre in Hackney in 2017, is a love story set in World War Two. French farm girl Elodie and German soldier Otto are experiencing love for the first time, while outside, the world around them is exploding. Rita has a truly original mind, and her poetic dialogue crackles. Critic Andrew Haydon as the ‘best thing on in London at the moment bar none.’
Our third playwright is Texan-born, Chicago-based playwright Reginald Edmund (https://pwcenter.org/profile/reginald-edmund) . Reginald was the Artistic Director for the Silver House Theatre in Houston as well as the founder and producer for the Silver House Playwrights Festival and the Houston Urban Theatre Series. He is the founder of Black Lives, Black Words (http://www.blacklivesblackwords.org/) , a theatrical phenomenon that started out in a basement in Chicago, that now takes place all over the world. Reginald curates performances of short plays responding to the Black Lives Matter movement on both sides of the Atlantic, asking ‘Do Black Lives matter today?’ A collection of the plays was published in 2017. Themes of race, gender, and empowerment, as well as a wicked sense of humour, define Reginald’s work.
Our final playwright is Caitlin McEwan (https://twitter.com/caitlinmcew) . Originally from Edinburgh but now based in London, her play Monsters was awarded a special commendation in the Soho Young Writers Award 2016. Her play, Harry (http://www.underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/whats-on/harry) , a dark comedy about friendship, fandom, and Harry Styles, was performed in April 2017 at Theatre N16 in Balham and will play at Edinburgh’s Underbelly venue through August. Her play Thick Skin was selected for the 2017 National Student Drama Festival.
So writers, bring us the drama, in poetry, prose, dialogue or whatever style takes you. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
Enjoy,
George Spender
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