New theatre tour for two plays about women

It is an exciting time when you are putting together a theatre tour of plays which you have both written and directed. A new team, cast, scripts and new venues.  Baggage, a two hander about a housewife and a homeless woman is a comic-tragic short play that premiered at the Wirral Festival of Firsts in July. The feedback and reviews were so good it encouraged me to put it with another two-hander SPACE and make a mini tour of the Merseyside area.

Space is about a woman, Crazy who is living in chaos. She needs to declutter her house and also her mind. Sanity, her alter ego arrives to help her find some space but can the two of them work together in harmony.
Both plays have themes of women in middle life, the change, marriage and divorce, children, affairs, ailing parents, dealing with death and break up, getting old and trying to stay fit. Depression and loneliness but... there's also a lot of laughter in between the tears and cries of rage.

It might seem a lot of bags and boxes but four actresses give their all in these heart warming plays that will bring a tear to your eye .
The January tour is to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Hand in Hand Theatre Productions and their new associate Tour co. Bus Stop productions.  the tour will be calling at ...
the Blue lounge at the Floral Pavilion New Brighton on Thursday 18th Jan. Then on to the Clwyd room Theatr Clwyd Mold on Fri 19th . THe following day there is a matinee performance at Neston Civc Hall Cheshire. On Weds 24th they will be at the Studio in Widnes, Thursday 25th CASA in hope street and finally another matinee on sat 27th at Tarvin community centre.
All women will find something to relate to in both these shows  all details will be on our website soon at www.handinhandtheateproductions.co.uk and tickets will be on sale from October.

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG

They tell me blogging is the way to get more hits on your website - is this true? Although I use social media extensively I only blog occasionally -mainly because of the time factor. As a playwright, writing for the amateur theatre market, I want to use as many tools as possible to spread the word but so far my blogs haven't generated much response.  When you are trying to set up a small business and promote your own work you have to find the best ( and cheapest ways of advertising).  As a working mum I am squeezing in writing as well as admin, advertising, publicity etc. usually all before breakfast.

So, here goes another 6am blog. While the rest of the house sleep I am getting up to date on three new titles going up on the website www.scripts4stage.com  this month.

BAGGAGE is a two hander for women. A one act play dealing with friendship and homelessness .When Sandra, a tired frustrated housewife meets Annie a woman with a terrible tragedy living rough they find some common ground. This is about their emotional baggage as well as the physical "bags" they carry.
Originally written in 2006 as a short sketch, New Flight Publications published it online and Amazon last September but with it being premiered this month, the script was developed in rehearsals and with new images it was republished to coincide with the first performance.

REMEMBRANCE DAY - a drama about fathers and sons with a ghostly feel. This was originally written in 2007 and produced in 2009 by Hand in Hand Theatre Productions it was successful at both All England Theatre Festival, National Drama Festival and Geoffrey Whitworth playwriting competition and received rave reviews. It was then licenced by NODA and in 2014, two other groups performed as part of WW1 centenary. New Flight took the Rights in 2015 and the script was available on download. This tenth anniversary edition is the first time it has appeared in paperback and it is hoped for the 2018 centenary it may prove popular.
The story of five generations of the Watson family against a backdrop of war. Darren, the young protagonist in 2006 is getting bullied and into trouble. His dad, a veteran from the Gulf War is suffering from PTD. Darren meets a stranger who takes him back to 1916 when he learns a lot about
fathers and sons so he can make his own footprint in the future.
This all male cast requires two young teenage boys as well as three older men but could work for a boys school or youth group as well as theatre groups.

RUNNING OUT OF TIME - a light hearted look at one family who leave the stressful world behind and find some peace of mind is "another place" but where exactly have they been?
This one act amusing  piece was again written in 2006 and although available on download since 2015 this is its first publication.  3Males 3 Females ( including a teenage boy and girl) plus a couple of walk-ons but an ideal festival play.
The Hargreaves are overworked and under stress and their world is running out of time until they end up in an old fashioned hotel in the west country where time seems to have stood still. There is a twist in the tale to leave them and the audience wondering - was it a dream or just a little bit of magic?

Three new titles means New Flight Publications have twelve one act plays on www.scripts4stage.com in a year. With new titles in the pipeline for the coming months. Also, an anthology of poetry A Poem For All Seasons has been on Amazon since Christmas 2016 with a new one planned for Christmas 2017

If you read this blog please leave a comment to let me know if blogging is helping - To Blog or not to Blog is still the question.

Spooky and zany new scripts

The past few months have been busy getting more of my scripts on to Amazon marketplace. Visit www.scripts4stage.com or search Bev Clark on Amazon.

 The latest two one act plays are very different S.P.AC.E is a zany two hander for women: Crazy is a woman lost in chaos, her house is a mess of clutter and junk. Her mind is a mess of memories, guilt and emotions she can't handle. In short, she can't cope. That's when her alter ego Sanity turns up to help but they can't find much in common. Working through the problems and the clutter they eventually find peace, harmony and Space! Laughter and tears....and a bit of Zumba ! Great fun as a short play for "women of a certain age"

Room No.5 is a revised version of my play Box. This is a theatre of the Absurd mystery set in a psychiatric hospital where characters become other characters and we are left guessing who is the patients and who are the medical staff. If you like dark, weird and mysterious this might be for your group. Two females and three males - with an extra actor "in the box" A great bit of fun and madness.

Both plays can be found at www.scripts4stage.com or on Amazon 

Other new plays include a short drama My Life Unspoken. A woman nursing her dying husband is taken back to her past by the visit from a stranger. Jessie's Tree a play for young people and saga through the 2Oth century. 4 separate scenes the first set in 1918 just after WW1 two children form an unlikely friendship through grief. then in 1940, two local children meet two evacuees. In 1967 a group of teenagers learn first hand about the reality of loss in the summer of love until finally its Halloween 1999 and Jess's birthday party reveals a secret that links all the generations. Funny, sad and heart warming a great play for schools and youth groups. 

what's coming up in the next few months? Baggage is to be revised and updated as the premiere of this two handed takes place 15th July and the new copies will be out by then. RIP Mr Shakespeare, our award winning play, will be changed to a black and white copy. the full colour version was a limited edition for our celebration year. so, if you would like the full colour version buy it now as it will only be available in b/w soon. 

New titles for the summer and autumn in the pipeline plus a new poetry anthology before Christmas 

So I better get writing. 

WALK ON BY.

WALK ON BY.

(A trip to the city prompted a short piece of creative writing)

I gave him my lunch. His gaze, half grateful for the sandwich, half lost in another place. Yet he managed to turn to the next passer-by and ask “any spare change?”  Perhaps he would have preferred my coins to food but I knew that would only end up on drink or drugs and what the boy needed was sustenance.

I only hovered for a moment, just long enough to notice the filthy blue sleeping bag, his scruffy hair, his white vacant stare. A hint of a handsome boy now almost a corpse.  I walked on, each doorway it seemed was a space for littered bodies. There among the cacophony of gulls, buskers and the beating of feet hurrying about their lunchtime business, were cardboard boxes and plastic bags holding something resembling “wrapped-up people.”            

I found myself looking down at my feet to evade the beggars’ eyes. I couldn’t help them all.  I was to be like all the others who managed to avoid these desperate pleas; no doubt passing here every day, now experts in avoidance with their designer carry bags – Were they blind or just hardened to it? 

The woman in the shop told me it was like an epidemic – young lives lost to addiction and neglect. There were so many of them the council had gated off an area behind the multi-storey car park where they all congregated: It was like a little village she said.

“It’s the Spice you know? It’s killing them. “

I wondered where their mothers were – the women who bled to give them life. Had they abandoned them or were they left somewhere grieving for their lost sons and daughters?

I wondered why all the empty buildings couldn’t be opened up –made into liveable, safe accommodation. Why wasn’t someone, somewhere, helping?

This is a proud city. Its heart beats with its music. Its history flows through its blood. Its people look out for each other; stand up for each other… yet its streets are awash with the homeless, the lost- unwanted and invisible.