Untitled Projects present Slope

Untitled Projects, in partnership with KILTR, Citizens Theatre & Traverse Theatre present
SLOPE
By Pamela Carter
Directed by Stewart Laing
Wed 12 – Sat 22 Nov 2014, Circle Studio, Citizens Theatre

PRESS NIGHT Thu 13 Nov, 7.30pm

Untitled Projects will stage a brand new production of Pamela Carter’s play Slope in the Citizens Theatre’s Circle Studio, filming for a live online stream every night it is performed. 

Originally produced by Untitled Projects in 2006, Slope explores the love affair between the 19th-century poets, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, and its impact on Verlaine’s young wife, Mathilde.  Their verbal sparring is scabrous and hilarious, and their rollercoaster relationships as passionate and claustrophobic as they are cruel and ridiculous.

In 2014, same sex marriage becomes legal in Scotland. At a time when gay relationships are sanctioned by the state – and are often as bourgeois as their straight counterparts – it’s interesting to look back at a time when the stigma of gay lives ran counter to the prevailing power of middle-class value systems.  What has changed, and what remains the same?

Unlike the original version, this production will take place in a bare, black box studio theatre, with several cameras positioned throughout the space. In partnership with KILTR, each performance will be filmed and streamed live internationally via their online portal. The play will be directed and lit as much for the cameras as for the audience, who will line the walls of the space, up close to the actors and action as it unfolds in Paris, London and Brussels in the 1870s.

The young cast consists of a graduate performing his first professional role (James Edwyn), an award-winning newcomer (Jessica Hardwick) and the man who played the enigmatic Paul Bright in Untitled Projects’ Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Owen Whitelaw).

Tickets available from citz.co.uk or by calling 0141 429 0022

-ENDS-

Citizens Theatre Press Night Thu 13 Nov, 7.30pm

For more information, interviews and images, please contact:
Niall Walker, Untitled Projects Pr Manager .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) / 0797 437 9905
For more information or ticket requests, please contact:
Keren Nicol, Marketing & Communications Manager .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)/ 0141 418 6233.

LISTINGS
Untitled Projects, in partnership with KILTR, Citizens Theatre & Traverse Theatre present
SLOPE
By Pamela Carter
Directed by Stewart Laing
Assistant director Lou Prendergast
Cast: James Edwyn, Jessica Hardwick, Owen Whitelaw
Dates: 12 – 22 November, 7.30pm

Previews: Wed 12 November, 7.30pm
Matinee: Sat 22 November, 2.30pm

Tickets: £12 / £8.50 concessions


NOTES TO EDITORS

Untitled Projects
Untitled Projects excels at making ambitious and adventurous theatre on a large scale.  They embrace taking risks, and in doing so surprise and challenge their audiences.  They continually re-imagine what theatre can be: blending landscape, biography, novel, video, lecture, documentary, installation, interview, fashion, music, science and playwriting.  Rooted in Scotland, they pride themselves in a far-reaching international outlook.

KILTR
KILTR is a new media platform, which creates and shares content that is culturally relevant to the user. KILTR is all about community, promoting, sharing, collaboration and understanding via a common cultural bond. KILTR also creates its own original content and are experts in live-streamed transmissions. Slope is their first foray into theatre and they’re extremely excited to be working with Untitled Projects and Stewart Laing again after a successful media partnership earlier in 2014 working on an interpretation of Alexander Trocchi’s Cain’s Book.

Pamela Carter has written several Untitled Projects, including Slope, An Argument About Sex and Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Pamela’s plays have been produced at Hampstead Theatre, the Traverse and at Dresden Staatshausspiel.  Pamela was the winner of the New Writing Commission at the Berliner Festspiele Stückemarkt 2012.  Since 2010, Pamela has been writing for the Swedish conceptual art duo Goldin+Senneby on The Nordenskiöld Model: their on-going investigation into algorithmic trading and financial reality.

Stewart Laing is one of Scotland’s leading directors and designers and is Artistic Director of Untitled Projects. Stewart’s directing work elsewhere includes The Maids at the Citizens Theatre, Les Parents terribles for Dundee Rep, Home: Stornoway for the National Theatre of Scotland and Ten Plagues for the Traverse.  He has also designed and directed opera in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK and internationally.  He recently designed Richard Jones’ production of Peter Grimes at La Scala, Milan.  Stewart won a Tony Award in 1997 for his design work on the Broadway musical Titanic.

Lou Prendergast will act as assistant director on Slope.  Lou is an award-winning live artist of Jamaican descent based in Glasgow.  Solo work includes Whatever Happened to Harry at Arches LIVE 2012 and 50 Shades of Black at the Citizens Theatre.  She is currently one of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Auteurs for 2013/14, an initiative that selects and supports the most ground breaking emerging artists in Scotland.

James Edwyn (Arthur Rimbaud). Slope is James Edwyn’s professional debut. He graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London this year. Previous theatre credits include: Romeo & Juliet (The Cockpit Theatre), Pope Joan, Ghost Office (National Youth Theatre), Oliver (New Vic Theatre) and a rehearsed reading of The Grandfathers (National Theatre).

Owen Whitelaw (Paul Verlaine) trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now RCS). Theatre work includes Unfaithful (Traverse), In Time of Strife (National Theatre of Scotland), Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Untitled Projects and National Theatre of Scotland), The Life of Stuff (Theatre 503), Sleeping Beauty (Citizens Theatre), Wonderland (Vanishing Point) King Lear (Citizens Theatre), Knives in Hens (National Theatre of Scotland, Tour). On film Owen has appeared in Dying Light (RIG Arts) Score (Independent), 7/11 In Repeat (Short) (Raging Goose Productions) and What Would Ridley Do (Digital Guerillas).

Jessica Hardwick (Mathilde Verlaine) was the winner on the inaugural Billy Award for Best Newcomer at the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2014 for her performance as Sonya in Crime and Punishment (Citizens Theatre/Liverpool Playhouse/Royal Lyceum Edinburgh), and Christine in Miss Julie (Citizens Theatre). She graduated last year from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Other theatre credits include: Three Sisters (Tron Theatre/Kings Theatre Edinburgh), The Fair Intellectual Club (Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Festival Fringe), The Possibilities (Tron Theatre/King’s Head Theatre/National Theatre Warsaw), The Antipodes (Sam Wanamaker Festival, Shakespeare’s Globe). Radio work includes The Pillow Book (Series 7, BBC Radio 4).

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