SERVICE
by Nina Millns.
Directed by Justin Audibert.
Presented by the ETPEP Award in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.
The world premiere staged reading of Service by Nina Millns, directed by the Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre Justin Audibert, plays for one night at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre on Monday, 25 April 2022 at 7.30pm
Eighty-year-old Fitz sits in a counselling session trying to piece together fragmented memories of joining the British Army and finding himself posted to Cyprus.
Before coming to England, his counsellor Dimitris deserted from the Cypriot army, but he can’t share that with Fitz…
A stunning award-winning new play from a new playwright, Service is a complex conflict of masculinity, colonialism and loyalty – in a room at the heart of the Empire.
Service won the ETPEP Award 2021, receiving a prize of £6,000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson, and a staged reading performance; and publication by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art.
Playwright Nina Millns is an alumni of the Criterion New Writers and School of Hightide. She is one of twelve writers chosen for the Channel 4 Screenwriting course 2021 and her first novel will be published in 2023. Nina’s play Delete was longlisted for the Papatango Award and featured on BBC Radio 4. Recent commissions include writing the BBC Sounds series Mortem which was honoured at the Webby Awards, and a Dr Who International Women’s Day Special for Big Finish Productions. Nina is a proud Londoner of mixed heritage who speaks four languages, and also works with young people as a tutor and mentor.
Director Justin Audibert returns to the Finborough Theatre where he directed Unscorched by Luke Owen. Justin is a freelance Writer and Director for film and theatre, and the current Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre. Direction at the Unicorn Theatre includes Anansi the Spider (also at Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), The Canterville Ghost, Aesop’s Fables, Beowulf and My Mother Medea. Other direction includes The Taming of the Shrew, Snow in Midsummer and The Jew of Malta (Royal Shakespeare Company), Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale (National Theatre), The Box of Delights (Wilton’s Music Hall), The Cardinal (Southwark Playhouse), Snow in Midsummer (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), The Jumper Factory (Young Vic Prison Project), How Not to Live in Suburbia and Wingman (Soho Theatre), The Man with the Hammer (Theatre Royal Plymouth) and Gruesome Playground Injuries (Gate Theatre). As a playwright, his plays include Marvin’s Binoculars and Anansi the Spider (Unicorn Theatre). Justin recently wrote and directed Marvin’s Binoculars, and three episodes of Anansi Respun (Unicorn Theatre Online and The Guardian), and Story Seekers (Unicorn Theatre and National Theatre Learning). He also directed the short film, Joseph Knight (National Theatre of Scotland and BBC Scotland). His production of The Taming of the Shrew was broadcast live into cinemas around the world and his productions of Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale, both adapted by him for young audiences, are part of the National Theatre Collection Drama Online. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Leverhulme Award for Emerging Directors from the National Theatre Studio, and was one of The Guardian’s 12 Theatre Stars for 2020.
The ETPEP Award is a playwriting prize for new UK playwrights who work or have worked in the theatre industry, run by the Finborough Theatre in association with the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust (ETPEP). The ETPEP Award is open to UK residents of any age who have not had a play professionally produced, and who have worked front of house, in administrative roles, on stage, backstage, lighting, design etc. or in a creative capacity in theatre for at least two years, either now or in the past. The award is intended to target and encourage those who are currently working in theatre but who are new to playwriting. The award is judged completely anonymously until the final shortlist and interview stage.
The ETPEP Award 2022 has also been announced and is open for entries until 30 April 2022.
For the ETPEP Award 2022, the prizes have been increased from the 2021 competition, and the 2022 winner will receive a prize of £8000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson; a rehearsal workshop with actors and a director to develop the play; and a staged reading performance of the winning play either at the Finborough Theatre, London, or online; and publication by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art. There will be ten runner-up prizes of £400 each.
The judges for both the 2021 and the 2022 Award will include Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Neil McPherson; Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Sue Healy; producer Ameena Hamid; actor, playwright and activist Athena Stevens; and Clive Webster of the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust, which founded the award.
For full details on entry for the 2022 competition, please visit www.etpepaward.co.uk
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Box Office 020 7244 7439
No booking fees
Monday, 25 April 2022 at 7.30pm
All tickets £10.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free tickets in every 10 purchased.
THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE IS COVID SAFE. PLEASE SEE OUR WEBSITE FOR OUR LATEST POLICIES.
DARKIE ARMO GIRL
by Karine Bedrossian.
Directed by Anastasia Bunce.
Presented by Where’s Betty Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre.
“My name is Karen. I’m eight and half years old and I hate myself already.”
The world premiere staged reading of Darkie Armo Girl, written and performed by Karine Bedrossian, plays for one night at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre on Monday, 9 May 2022 at 7.30pm.
A true story.
1915. The Armenian Genocide. Families are marched across the Syrian desert to their death. Those who survive are scattered around the world.
1974. An Armenian family fleeing a civil war, arrive in the UK with £35, a suitcase and the address of a relative.
1976. One careless mistake. Nine months and one near fatal C-section later, Karen Mary Bedrossian is born into a perfectly fine life and grows up in a perfectly fine house in Richmond, Surrey. But inside her lies a secret deep, dark pain that rips her to shreds on a daily basis. By eighteen, she’s homeless, penniless, and her only friends are a couple of heroin addicts and criminals. The solution? Start again. Become a famous pop star. Then everyone would love and admire her and she’d be whole.
Wouldn’t she?
Developed with the Finborough Theatre, Darkie Armo Girl is a new solo play from British-Armenian writer and performer Karine Bedrossian about surviving life with the innocence of a child, but the destructive self-abandon of a suicide bomber.
Playwright and Performer Karine Bedrossian is an actress, writer and film-maker, born in the UK to Armenian parents. She began her career as a recording artist, signed to Telstar Records. She later went on to work as an actress, playing the lead in Hole In The Heart (Teatro Technis) where she was reviewed in The Guardian as “one to watch”; the female lead in Richard Kalinoski’s Beast On The Moon, directed by Giles Croft (Nottingham Playhouse), TV dramas and independent British and international cinema. Karine recently wrote her first feature length screenplay, Stripped, and adapted it into a short film which she produced, directed and edited on an iPhone and which won ‘Best Lockdown Film’ in the Earl’s Court Film Festival 2020.
Director Anastasia Bunce trained in Theatre Directing at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, graduating in 2020. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Patch Plays, a company devoted to staging new work that explores animal ethics and sustainability. Direction includes OffFest nominated one woman show, Meat Cute (Chiswick Playhouse, Hen and Chickens Theatre and Bread and Roses Theatre), Patch Plays Scratch Night (Greenhouse Theatre), REDACTED (Mountview Catalyst Festival), Di and Viv and Rose (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts), Summer and Smoke (Exeter Phoenix) and Plucked (Edinburgh Festival and Exeter Phoenix). Assistant Direction at the Finborough Theatre includes Not Quite Jerusalem. She is currently developing a new drama, Blood On Your Hands, for Cockpit Theatre in June 2022, and a Children’s musical with Patch Plays for Harrow Arts Centre in April 2022.
The press on director Anastasia Bunce
“Inspired directing.” ????? Five Stars, London Theatre 1 on Patch Plays
“Funny, engaging and utterly thought-provoking…Meat Cute provides deliciously crafted, beautifully balanced food for thought.” ????? Five Stars, West End Best Friend on Meat Cute
“Anastasia Bunce’s direction celebrates the farcical aspects of the piece…ensuring we never lose the energy that powers this fast paced play.” ???? Four Stars, View from the Outside on Meat Cute
“To think the company, Patch Plays (formed by Anastasia Bunce and Maria Majewska) were founded in 2020 is incredible and I look forward to seeing more of their work.” ???? Four Stars, London Pub Theatre on Meat Cute
“Bunce’s directorial style is one of the most memorable elements of this retelling.” Exeposé on Summer and Smoke
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Box Office 020 7244 7439
No booking fees
Monday, 9 May 2022 at 7.30pm.
All tickets £10.
Group Bookings for all performances – 1 free tickets in every 10 purchased.
THE FINBOROUGH THEATRE IS COVID SAFE. PLEASE SEE OUR WEBSITE FOR OUR LATEST POLICIES.
