Society for Theatre Research Wickham Lecture: Making a Scene
6pm, Wednesday 26th April 2023
Wickham Theatre, Cantock's Close, Bristol, BS8 1UP
Bristol’s Theatre Department has a long history of producing some major figures in British theatre, television, film and more. For a decade between the mid-eighties and the mid-nineties, it specialised in producing playwrights, some of whom would go on to be the most important playwrights of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries: among others, Sarah Kane, Tim Crouch ... and this event’s panellists.
In this panel we’ll ask what it was about Bristol Theatre that produced so many playwrights, the continuing influence of Bristol on their work, and, more broadly, how each of these writers’ attitudes to writing and theatre have changed over the course of their writing lives, what they’ve learned about writing and theatre, and the wider changing context for playwrights in British theatre and beyond.
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Event Panellists:
Mark Ravenhill ...
... (graduated 1987) sprang to prominence with Shopping & Fucking (1996), which went from Upstairs at the Royal Court to the West End and has been produced multiple times around the world and had the distinction being denounced by leading politicians. Ever-changing, his voluminous work includes Product (2005), pool (no water) and The Cut (2006), Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (2008), The Cane (2018), Angela (2022), and The Haunting of Susan A (2022). He has written plays for young people, panto, musical theatre, song cycles, and opera. He currently joint artistic director of the King’s Head Theatre, London, where he has programmed a pioneering programme of queer work.
David Greig ...
... (graduated 1990) is one of the leading figures in Scotland’s theatre of the last thirty years. Starting work as part of the legendary Scottish company Suspect Culture, his early work include contemporary classics like Europe (1994), The Architect (1996) and The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union (1999). Artistically restless and prolific, his work includes Dr Korczak's Example (2001) San Diego (2003), The American Pilot (2005), Midsummer (2008), The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (2011), The Events (2013), The Suppliant Women (2016) and Egyptians (2023). He’s written musicals, adaptations, plays for children, and performance art texts. He has been artistic director of the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh since 2016.
Laura Wade ...
... (graduated 1999) came to general notice when both Colder than Here at the Soho Theatre and Breathing Corpses at the Royal Court opened the same month in 2005. She followed that with Other Hands (2006) and Alice (2010) an adaptation from Lewis Carroll. That same year, her play Posh for the Royal Court, exploring the behaviour of something like the Bullingdon Club, coincided with the General Election that brought Bullingdon alumnus David Cameron to power. The play transferred to the West End and was later filmed. Her adaptation of Tipping the Velvet (2015) was followed by Home, I’m Darling (2018) and her metatheatrical take on Jane Austen’s unfinished The Watsons (2019).
Dan Rebellato ...
... (graduated 1989) Chairing the panel, Dan Rebellato is a playwright, teacher, and academic. His work for theatre includes Showstopper (1996), Here’s What I Did With My Body One Day (2004), Static (2008), Beachy Head (2009), Chekhov in Hell (2010), and Emily Rising (2016). He is a leading writer for BBC radio and his plays include Cavalry (2008), My Life Is a Series of People Saying Goodbye (2011), You & Me (2021), Exemplar (2022), and 7 Ghosts (2023). In 2015-16, he was lead writer on Blood, Sex & Money an epic twenty-four-hour adaptation of 20 novels by Emile Zola. His new play Slow Air will be broadcast later this year as part of a season celebrating 100 years of BBC radio drama. His guidebook to Playwriting has just been published by the National Theatre & Methuen Drama.
