Tristan Bates Theatre22 September – 03 October 2020

SUNNYMEAD COURTby Gemma LawrenceDirected by James Hillier

Defibrillator, in association with The Actors Centre, present

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CastGemma Lawrence

Remmie Milner

Sound DesignerMax Pappenheim

Lighting and Video DesignerWill Monks

Movement DirectorChi-San HowardAssistant Director

Ewa DinaProducer

Jack Holden

WHO’D PUT ON A PLAY DURING A PANDEMIC?

There are so many unknowns. Will anyone actually want to come? We’ve all been at home for six months and still have a season of Selling Sunset to watch. How can you possibly re-

spond to what has happened in 2020? Black Lives Matter, Covid, a vacuum of leadership at the highest political levels, a

world where human interaction is increasingly digital.

Despite all the risks, it feels more necessary than ever to tell stories that will entertain and bring joy into the world. We need

to create and can only do that by leaning into the changes. There are new rules. Let’s use them to fuel the work.

Gemma Lawrence has written something spectacular and it’s a total thrill that she is appearing in her play alongside the ridicu-lously talented Remmie Milner. After ONLY one and half weeks

of rehearsal and tech, here we are!

But the journey of Sunnymead Court is not a typical one. The project started out in May, when Mitchell Reeve at The Actors Centre asked Defibrillator to create a socially distanced

theatre experiment. Gemma, myself and Jack Holden were due to start work on another pro-ject at that time, so I called them. It’s probably fair to say we all said yes, we’d do this to-gether, but didn’t really believe it would happen. But then the idea began to take shape.

What might a play look like now?

First and foremost we settled on, in E.M. Forster’s words, the human need to “Only connect.” Over the last six months there stands a common story about how we have all lived without

(and in some cases lost) friends, family, loved ones; alongside the challenges of forging new connections. It has also been a time where more than ever, for good or bad, we have been

confronted with the challenge of connecting with ourselves.

So that’s why you put on a play in a pandemic. Safely of course. It’s a chance to connect. Connect with imagination. With inspiring actors, creatives, friends and even perhaps our-

selves. With a live audience in a theatre who all have this shared experience. Only Connect.

James Hillier, Director

DEFIBRILLATOR brings a spark of life to stories that have been forgotten or looking for creative re-invention. The company has a growing reputation for delivering inspiring and

entertaining theatre in both conventional and non-theatre settings.www.defibrillatortheatre.com

CONNECTION, ISOLATION & HOPE.

When James first approached me about writing this play, the brief was both simple and seemingly impossible. How can we create a piece of Covid-secure theatre, that could serve as an experiment or blueprint for other theatre-makers going forward? How can we adapt to these new times? It is a challenge but more so an opportunity; a chance to reform theatre in more inclusive and positive ways, to build back better. There are the obvious physical limita-tions of social distancing, which were central to the piece in writing and obviously informed the rehearsal period. There is also the wonderful opportunity that theatre streaming present-ed to us during lockdown. Overnight, theatre became accessible to millions. With some (not all) barriers removed, British theatre found a whole new audience, and that wasn’t something we were prepared to lose with this production.

Lockdown has been a terrible, frightening time for so many, and we wanted to offer a tonic to that. The intrepid theatre-goers returning to an auditorium for the first time should be given a slice of hope and come away feeling uplifted. There has been lots to celebrate in the way that communities have pulled together and the people who have forged new relationships with neighbours they may never have spoken to before. It was here that Marie and Stella were born. Two women now confined to their balconies and forced to look at their surround-ings in new ways. As a Londoner, I also wanted Sunnymead Court to be a celebration of place, finding joy in the small and everyday. Tiny moments and interactions that would ordi-narily have passed Marie and Stella by, now take on huge significance.

Lockdown has been particularly hard for many LGBTQ+ people, lots of whom have had to move back to hostile family homes, forced back into the closet or subjected to homophobic abuse. As a queer writer, it felt important to explore this. Likewise, this time has thrown up or exacerbated many mental health issues, and it felt right that this was present within the story. They are two women, both struggling in this strange time, who find their way out through each other.

The rehearsal period has been exciting and collaborative, with everyone working feverishly towards a shared goal: sharing this show with an audience. Everyone – the wonderful team at the Ac-tors Centre, our entire creative team, producer, cast – has pulled together and given their all. Navigating the restrictions and brac-ing every time the government announce something new has pre-sented its challenges, but more than anything the last few weeks have made me hopeful for theatre’s survival. The desire to reach out and tell a story will always prevail.

This moment in the world is so unique and has been so particular to each individual; we want-ed to explore a tiny slice of what it means to a be a human right now. It is a piece about con-nection and isolation, and ultimately hope. It also features a few absolute tunes, so most of all, I hope it gets you dancing.

Gemma Lawrence, Writer

CAST

GEMMA LAWRENCEWriter & Marie

REMMIE MILNERStella

As a writer: straight vodka for Theatre503’s Rapid Write Response, Ribbons performed at Bloom Theatre’s SAPLINGS, and REWILD, performed at Omnibus Theatre and now be-ing developed into a full-length piece as part of the London Playwrights 2020 programme. Homecoming was commissioned for The Space’s Locked Down Looking Up season, and starred Patsy Ferran.

As an actor: Theatre includes Not Talking (Ar-cola Theatre); Nuclear (Young Vic); Wasted (Orange Tree Theatre); As You Like It, Chil-dren of the Sun (National Theatre); All My Sons (Hong Kong Arts Festival); The Tem-pest (Southwark Playhouse); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); Gaslight (Salisbury Playhouse); Lee Harvey Oswald (Finborough Theatre); Rough Cuts (Royal Court); The Cherry Orchard (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory/Rose Theatre Kingston). TV includes Silent Witness, Shakespeare and Hathaway, Clash of the Futures, Luther, Hol-by City, Misfits, 1066, The Bill, Casualty, Wak-ing the Dead, Time of Your Life, Stir It Up, All About George and Ahead of the Class. Film includes Frail, A Bunch of Amateurs and Enlightenment. Radio includes The Broken Word, Ambridge Extra, The Falcon and the Hawk and The Chess Girls (BBC Radio 4). Voice work includes Assassin’s Creed: Gold (Audible) and Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix).

Remmie Milner trained at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

TV credits include: Save Me & Save Me Too (Sky Atlantic), A Christmas Carol (BBC), Phil-ip K Dick’s Electric Dreams (Channel 4), Whitechapel (ITV), Trollied (Sky 1) and The Hour (BBC).

Theatre credits include: Coriolanus & Chicken Soup (Sheffield Crucible), Terror (Lyric Ham-mersmith/Brisbane Arts Festival), The Winter’s Tale, To Kill A Mockingbird and Chip Shop The Musical (Octagon Theatre), Plastic Fig-urines (Box of Tricks), The Pier (Oxford Play-house), Melody Loses Her Mojo (Liverpool Playhouse), I Started A Fire (Arcola Theatre) and Olympics Opening Ceremony: Pop Cul-ture (Olympic Stadium).

Radio credits include: Stone (BBC Radio 4).

SUNNYMEAD COURT IN REHEARSAL

Rehearsal photos © H

arry Livingstone

‘We are transitioning from human experiences to digital experiences’ is the first line of this new play and yet, it seems infinitely recognisable. We have lived through a global shift in communica-tion; FaceTime, Texts, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Houseparty, and Zoom became our primary source of contact to anyone in the outside world, for a short while.

We became afraid to speak to neighbours, knock on doors. The outside was dangerous. Pixilat-ed images of loved ones and switching Wi-Fi off and on at least twice a day became the norm. But then, we were allowed to meet. Bubbles were introduced. Being in a room with another person, contact, touch became a thing within our lives again and we were confronted with what lies at the crux of our humanity; connection via contact. Do you remember the first time you hugged some-one after three months of isolation? The first kiss. The first touch. Our bodies remembered what it was to feel again and a reappreciation was born.

Sunnymead Court feels like an encapsulation of the journey we’ve been through together. A recog-nition of the worldwide change and shifts that came from having to spend time with self; having the minute yet detrimental habits that we all had magnified x1000, forcing us to go through a rebirth of self. A rebirth within our familial and romantic relationships. Fundamentally, we learnt that we aren’t robots who can rely solely on the virtual. That touch is more important than ever.

After all was said and done, I left lockdown with an understanding of how much I need to love and be loved. How important empathy for your fellow human being, regardless of sexuality, race, size etc. is for the world to function. I was reminded that I need to actually call my parents. Spend ded-icated quality time with my friends, my chosen communities. How important it is to live because you never know when the world can be turned upside down. When unexpected loss can occur. When touch will be seen as taboo, infecting.

When all you were surrounded with was time to look at your life, did you notice how your priorities had to change? How ‘important’ things became unimportant. Living is finding joy in the small mo-ments, stopping and breathing, taking in the world around you. Expressing gratitude for the peo-ple that make our hearts literally swell, in a way that likes on Instagram or career accolades can’t. It’s being present. Laughing wholeheartedly as much as you can. Creating memories. Loving hard and being around people that make you understand the definition of love. As a race, the lesson we should take from the year 2020, when masks hid smiles, elbow touches replaced hugs and clubs became an ever-fading memory, at least for a short while, is to redefine what it is to truly live.

Ewa Dina, Assistant Director

WHAT IT IS TOTRULY LIVE

It goes without saying that the last number of months have been undeniably trying for the theatre sector, with far-reaching and devastating ramifications. Following The Actors Cen-tre’s closure in March, the proceeding months presented a daunting series of challenges wherein the light at the end of the tunnel seemed but a distant flicker. Then we remem-bered the innate tenacity and agility of our sector. We remembered the inspirational crea-tives who exist as its beating heart, and we took that faint flicker of light — of hope — and we dared to imagine what may be possible in this new normal.

Set against a backdrop of worldwide fear, uncertainty and grief, a special collaboration began to unfold. When we approached Defibrillator to create a unique piece of social-ly distanced theatre, nobody really knew how, or if, we could make this happen. Yet, in a melting pot of creativity, imagination and yes, careful and meticulous planning, Sunny-mead Court was born, marking the writing debut of the wonderful Gemma Lawrence.

It has been a pleasure to work with Defibrillator on this very special production, which will mark the final production of 2020 at The Actors Centre. Negotiating this new way of work-ing has been uncharted territory for everyone and while we do not know what the future will look like at The Actors Centre, we are delighted to safely welcome audiences back to our Tristan Bates Theatre for Sunnymead Court. The shared experience of live theatre is an unmatched thrill and what Gemma and Defibrillator have created not only stands as a beautiful testament to the potent magic of theatre, but also serves as a powerful remind-er of its ability to hold a mirror up to our society; to elucidate, engage and ultimately trans-form us.

Mitchell Reeve, Theatre Programme Manager, The Actors Centre

THE TENACITY OF THEATRE

SUNNYMEAD COURT by Gemma Lawrence

Directed by James HillierTuesday 22 September - Saturday 03 October 2020

Running time: 45 minutes, with no interval.Poster design by Ben Strak, rehearsal photography by Harry Livingstone.

With thanks to Arts Council England, The Actors Centre, Stephen Wall, Edward Sumner, Clare Strak, Ben Strak, Jane Leggett, Sophie Dupre, Caroline Hartnell, John Dupre,

Robert Toby Walker, Maureen Percival, Carol Miles, Nick Giles.

CREATIVE TEAM

EWA DINAAssistant Director

JAMES HILLIERDirector

Ewa is a director, facilitator, ac-tor & a spoken word artist. As a facilitator, Ewa has worked for The Kiln Theatre, Company Three and co-created & facilitat-ed a workshop on music, move-ment and storytelling for Talawa. Music and movement are inte-gral parts of Ewa’s process; she is a confident mover. Credits include: Director: Girls Just Wanna Have Funds – A short film (Bloom The-atre’s Saplings 2.0 – Currently on Youtube), The Kola Nut Does Not Speak English (Vaults Fes-tival 2020), Omish (Courtyard Theatre), Route (Tristan Bates Theatre, Bread & Roses Theatre, The Hope Theatre) Actor-Mover: Regi in How We Love (Dir. Robbie Taylor Hunt – Vaults Festival 2020), McMurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Dir. Derek Anderson – The English Theatre, Frankfurt), Sis-ter in Custody (UK Tour) (Dir. Gbemisola Ikumelo – Prime The-atre & The Art Machine), Aunt-ie Mi in Run It Back (Dir. Coral Messam – Talawa Theatre Com-pany).

Ewa graduated from the Rose Bruford BA Acting course in 2019.

CHI-SAN HOWARDMovement Director

James established Defibrillator theatre company in 2011. His di-recting credits include, most re-cently Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, the World Premiere of Mike Bart-lett’s Not Talking (OFFIE Nom-ination for Best Director), the 5 star off-west end production, A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard, Terry Johnson’s Insignificance at Langham Place, New York, the Premiere production of Tennes-see Williams’ The Hotel Plays at the Grange Hotel in 2012 and The Langham, London in 2014. The Armour by Ben Ellis at The Langham in 2015 (Audience Ex-perience Award at Le Miami Re-bels), Doug Lucie’s Hard Feel-ings at the Finborough in 2013. Upcoming, he is directing the Alfred Fagon finalist, Foxes by Dexter Flanders at Theatre503 in Spring 2021.

James has directed short films. How To Make A Good First Im-pression Part 1 won awards at Tribecca Film Festival and Cannes.

He trained as an actor at RADA. In theatre he has worked in the West End, Broadway, Royal Court, NT, Almeida Theatre, The Young Vic, Manchester Royal Exchange and the Traverse The-atre, Edinburgh. He was a series regular in Season 1 & 2 of The Crown for NETFLIX.

Previous Movement Work for Theatre: The Effect (English Theatre Frankfurt) Little Shop of Horrors (LAMDA) The Sugar Syndrome (Orange Tree Thea-tre), Oor Wullie (Dundee Rep/National Tour) Catching Com-ets (Pleasance Edinburgh/Roy-al Exchange) Variations (Dorf-man Theatre/NT Connections) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Southwark Playhouse) Let Kilburn Shake (Kiln Youth Theatre) Skellig (Nottingham Playhouse) Under the Umbrel-la (Belgrade Theatre Coventry) American Idiot (Mountview) De-scribe the Night (Hampstead Theatre) Parade (Mountview) Love and Money; Pornogra-phy (ALRA) In Event of Moone Disaster (Theatre 503) Tender-ly (New Wimbledon Theatre Studio) Cosmic Scallies (Roy-al Exchange Manchester/Grae-ae), Carmen the Gypsy; These Trees Are Made of Blood (Arco-la Theatre) Deposit (Associate, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs) Occupational Hazards (Associ-ate, Hampstead Theatre) Moth (Hope Mill Theatre) Every You Every Me (Oxford Playhouse) Scarlet; The Tempest (South-wark Playhouse) Bury the Dead; Homos or Everyone in America; Adding Machine: A Musical (Fin-borough Theatre).

Film: I Wonder Why - Joesef Mu-sic Video (Spindle Productions) Hurt by Paradise (Emmyland Productions) Birds of Paradise (Pemberton Films).

CREATIVE TEAM

WILL MONKSLighting and Video Designer

MAX PAPPENHEIMSound DesignerWill trained at Bristol Old Vic

Theatre School.Theatre includes: I, Cinna (the poet) (Unicorn Theatre, Digital; OnComm Awardee), The Glass Will Shatter (Omnibus Theatre), Ali & Dahlia (Pleasance Lon-don; nominated for Best Vid-eo Designer: Offie Award),Tro-jan Horse (UK tour, Edinburgh; winner of Fringe First and Am-nesty International Freedom of Expression Awards), Jericho’s Rose (Hope Theatre), The Snow Queen, Pinocchio (Old Rep Theatre), The Dark Room (The-atre503; nominated for Best Lighting Designer: Offie Award); Who Cares (winner of Sit-Up Award), The Boy, the Piano and the Beach, On the Outskirts of a Large Event, Dust, E15, I Am Joan (UK tours); We Live By The Sea (nominated for Best Ensem-ble and Best Production: Offie Awards), This Is Where We Live (international tours); Dyl (Old Red Lion); The Benidorm Elvis Fiesta (Benidorm Palace); Chil-cot (The Lowry, Battersea Arts Centre); Dangerous Or Other-wise, How To Survive The Blitz And Other Things, Time Passes. Listen. (site specific).

JACK HOLDENProducer

Theatre includes The Night of the Iguana (West End); The Way of the World (Donmar); The Chil-dren (Royal Court/Broadway); Waiting for Godot (Sheffield Crucible); Macbeth (Chiches-ter Festival Theatre); Dry Pow-der, Sex with Strangers, Lab-yrinth (Hampstead); Ophelias Zimmer (Schaubühne, Berlin/Royal Court); Crooked Dances (Royal Shakespeare Company); One Night in Miami (Notting-ham Playhouse); Hogarth’s Pro-gress (Rose Theatre Kingston); The Ridiculous Darkness (Gate Theatre); The Gaul (Hull Truck); A Kettle of Fish (Yard Thea-tre); CommonWealth (Almeida); Creve Coeur (Print Room); Swit-zerland, Spamalot, The Glass Menagerie (English Theatre of Frankfurt); Mrs Lowry and Son (Trafalgar Studios); My Cousin Rachel, The Habit of Art, Monog-amy, Teddy, Toast, Fabric, In-vincible (National Tours). Opera includes Miranda (Opéra Com-ique, Paris); Scraww (Trebah Gardens); Vixen (Vaults/Inter-national Tour); Carmen: Remas-tered (ROH/Barbican). Radio in-cludes Home Front (BBC Radio 4). Associate Artist of The Fac-tion and Silent Opera.

Jack trained as an actor at Bris-tol Old Vic Theatre School. He then went straight on to play the lead role of Albert in the National Theatre’s internation-ally award-winning production of War Horse. Since then, Jack has worked at theatres across the country including Leicester Curve, Nottingham Playhouse, Theatre Royal Bath, Bristol Old Vic, the RSC, The Yard and the Almeida. Jack has also ap-peared in British independent films The Levelling and Jour-ney’s End, and in television drama for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Amazon. Jack is a writ-er and took part in the Royal Court Young Writers Programme in 2013. He is currently under commission to Out of Joint. Jack is assistant producer for The HandleBards, the world’s first cycling Shakespeare compa-ny, and produces films with his company Watersmeet Produc-tions.

ANNA TOWNLEYStage Manager

Trained at the National Youth Theatre.Theatre includes Not Quite Je-rusalem (Finborough Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Criterion Theatre), Frankenstein and Great Expectations (South-wark Playhouse), The Reluc-tant Fundamentalist (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Lost Boys New Town (Hope Theatre), Jerusalem (Stanley Theatre)

Immersive Theatre Work: The Wolf of Wall Street (Stratton Oak-mont Productions); NeverLand (Guild of Misrule)

DONATE

TeamAmanda Davey Chief Executive

Mitchell Reeve Theatre Programme ManagerJamie Tuohy Marketing & Communications Manager

Beatrice Young Programme CoordinatorSpecial thanks to Patrick Brett

Like many unsubsidised charities, The Actors Centre has experienced significant losses dur-ing its closure due to Covid-19 and immediately following the run of Sunnymead Court, The Actors Centre will remain closed for 2020. While our online programmes will continue during this period, unfortunately, it is not financially viable for the organisation to physically reopen in the current climate.

The Actors Centre will run out of money by December 2020 and we are now renewing our fundraising appeal; calling for urgent donations to save our organisation. While Covid-19 cer-tainly represented the biggest threat in our organisation’s 42-year history, we are now facing the heartbreaking reality that The Actors Centre may not exist in a few months.

It goes without saying that the cultural sector has been the worst-affected by the pandemic and when our beloved theatres do reopen, we know that we will be returning to an irrevoca-bly changed cultural landscape. At The Actors Centre, we have been using this time to ne-gotiate our space within the industry and reimagine what the future of the organisation will look like. We are excited about how we will move The Actors Centre forward, however we cannot get there without your urgent support.

Please visit actorscentre.co.uk/donate to help #SaveTheActorsCentre

Amanda DaveyChief Executive, The Actors Centre