Company News

Davidson PlayGC Bursary

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new UK Theatre Writing bursary called the Davidson PlayGC Bursary which has been established to support theatres and writers to produce new work. An initial fund of £60,000 has been raised and the first £20,000 bursary is being awarded to the Royal Court Theatre in London to support the new Artistic Director, David Byrne, as he launches his first season of plays. Byrne has selected the playwright Oli Forsyth for the first bursary. Oli is currently working on the new play entitled BRACE BRACE which will be staged from Thursday 3 October to Saturday 9 November in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court.

The arts and theatre are under enormous pressure, yet the need to foster and encourage new writing is an important part of theatre’s role in society. We set up PlayGC with the primary aim of supporting new theatre writing and this is one of the ways we are delivering that aim. We approached the Alan Davidson Foundation with the idea of collaborating to create this bursary, and we are thrilled that they readily agreed. We had been impressed with the work of David Byrne at the New Diorama Theatre, and, with his move to the Royal Court, the home of new writing, it seemed like the right time and place to fund the first bursary.

BRACE BRACE will be directed by Daniel Raggett.

Details of BRACE BRACE at the Royal Court Theatre

Find out more about the work of our partner the Alan Davidson Foundation

PlayGC in NYC!

Plans were well under way for a September tour of David Greig’s The Letter of Last Resort to an off-Broadway theatre, until we heard that Equity work visa delays will necessitate a deferral to Spring 2025. We have been building great links with New York based Playhouse Creatures Theatre Compan y, led by Joseph Rodriguez, so are very hopeful that this is just a postponement not a cancellation. Anthony Biggs of Well Played Theatre Company will still direct it.
More anon...

PlayGC is award winner!

We were delighted that our show GLORY OF THE GARDEN, performed at the Shaftesbury Fringe in late July 2023, was voted by our audience members the best production in the 'Poetry & Spoken Word' category.

We were joined by multi-talented performers Sara Jasmin Page, Sam Ebner-Landy and Charlie Greenwood to present 'a glorious anthology of poetry, prose and songs about gardens and the gardeners who tend them' in the site-specific location of walled garden at The Potting Shed, central Shaftesbury (or TBH inside the shop on the Saturday to escape from the rain - happily outdoors again on the Sunday)

Here's some of the affirming feedback we received:

My group soooo enjoyed your event! We had the happiest time with you and talked a lot about you over lunch. THANK YOU VERY MUCH for the entertainment!!

Well what a stunning Show. Thank you, all of you, for producing such a brilliant hour of horticultural fun.

We greatly enjoyed Glory of the Garden. Highly engaging, entertaining and relatable!

I just had to write to say how much I enjoyed your performance in Shaftesbury yesterday, it exceeded all my expectations. I do hope you will be back next year.

All emotions evoked and so well put together

A mini photo montage from the audience:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cLRlZCDmkvCOaHKbOx49Y_703iYf8TsW/view?usp=drive_web

MISSED IT? see below for some good news...

Summer Tour 2024

We have a number of dates booked in for our summer tour of Glory of the Garden, including: Friday 7th June at Donhead St Andrew, Dorset
[https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/playgc-theatre-company/t-avkvxnd];
Monday 17th June at Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire [PRIVATE EVENT];
Friday 26th July in the garden of Shaftesbury Abbey Museum as part of Shaftesbury Fringe 2024 [https://www.shaftesburyfringe.co.uk/friday/];
Sunday 28th July at Bonham, Wiltshire [PRIVATE EVENT in aid of the Motor Neurone Disease Association];
and Thursday 29th August at West Horsley Place, Surrey [hosted by the Surrey Gardens Trust].
- Watch this space for other date & venues

and in other news for 2024...

Lisa was recently in The Slaves of Solitude, adapted by Simon Roberts from the novel by Patrick Hamilton which was performed at The Questors Theatre in Ealing from 3rd - 11th May.
We have been invited by renowned Salisbury-based choir the St John Singers to join their Summer concert All You Need is Love in the evening of Saturday 6th July. Robert and Lisa will be reading love-themed poems and prose between the songs, performing in St Thomas's Church, Salisbury. More info here: SUMMER CONCERT - ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE | St John Singers. Tickets, to include a glass of wine, £12.50 from Casa Fina, 62 High Street, Salisbury 01722 326428, from choir members and on the door.

Buoyed by the positive response and helpful feedback to the staged reading in April 2022 of our new play Can’t Kill the Spirit, directed by Francesca McInally, at The Playground Theatre, White City, the script has seen further development, with the inclusion of a brand new scene and character. We hope this play, inspired by Greenham Common and modern-day protests, may see a formal production in due course, under the direction of Lucy Aley-Parker.

We have secured the professional rights to Christopher Reid’s wickedly funny poem and play Six Bad Poets. Some of you may have seen staged productions of this either at The Playground Theatre or The Questors Theatre back in 2019 and 2020, in which Robert played Charles Prime. For a future production, Robert will be the executive producer and the production will be directed by Anthony Biggs, former AD at Jermyn Street Theatre and The Playground Theatre, now of Well Played theatre company.

**In April - May 2022 we took The Letter of Last Resort on a national tour, as part of a double bill of one act plays on the theme of the Cold War.
COVID cruelly curtailed our plans but we still managed to perform at Portsmouth, Donhead St Andrew, Dorset, at The Alma Tavern & Theatre, Bristol and at the beautiful Kenton Theatre, Henley-on-Thames

AUDIENCE COMMENTS FOLLOWING 'The Letter of Last Resort'**
"That was the most gripping evening! Thought provoking and even witty for such a devastating subject”
“Outstanding writing, brilliantly interpreted by you two - you had us hanging on your every word”
“a hugely interesting play, subtly constructed and beautifully executed – we were so impressed by it all”
“flawless and utterly convincing and it made me think, which is always a good thing”
“this is definitely a play worth catching, sensitively portrayed by PlayGC