A beloved author reveals a disturbing new narrative in this explosive new work from award-winning Dancing Brick
A reclusive children’s writer becomes wildly successful. Her books are treasured across the country. But when a troubling narrative starts to unfold, we find ourselves asking: what matters more, the storyteller or the story? Brilliantly imaginative and theatrically original, Heather is a short, sharp play about language, prejudice and the power of stories.
Thomas Eccleshare is the Verity Bargate Award-winning writer of Pastoral and the co-artistic director of Arches Brick Award winning company Dancing Brick.
In three acts, the play explores the two characters’ relationships to the books and to each other, forcing them to question their own responsibility and motivation. Each act takes the performers into a different mode of communication, forcing the audience to engage with the different ways in which the text is being manipulated, mediated and interpreted.
In a world of fake news, now is the perfect time to question, challenge and interrogate the idea of authorship, objectivity and whether a text can exist in isolation.
Heather is based on Eccleshare’s short play Helen which had four performances in 2014. It is directed by Valentina Ceschi who has extensive experience in theatre and opera. She is co-director at Dancing Brick with whom she has toured nationally and internationally since 2008 (her latest
production of the Snow Child, commissioned by the Unicorn Theatre, will
transfer to the Lincoln Centre in New York later this year). She is associate
director for OperaUpClose for whom she is directing The Magic Flute in a new
version by Glyn Maxwell at Soho Theatre, opening in September.
Thomas Eccleshare is a writer, performer, and theatre maker who trained at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris. As a playwright, Thomas has won the Verity
Bargate Award, the Catherine Johnson Award and been nominated for an Off West End Award for Most Promising Writer He is the co-artistic Director
of Dancing Brick with whom he has toured work nationally and internationally, been nominated for two Total Theatre Awards and won the Arches Brick Award.
Summerhall, Cairns Lecture
Theatre, 2-27 Aug (not 3, 14, 21) 18.00 (60 mins)
