with the support of the French Institute in the UK

COMPANY OF ANGELS presents

THEATRE CAFÉ FESTIVAL 1 – 6 NOV 2010

Curated by: Teresa Ariosto and John RetallackCreative Producer: Vanessa Fagan

Company of Angels return to Tooley Street, London SE1, with a packed programme of events presented in two neighbouring venues, the UnicornTheatre and Southwark Playhouse.

Theatre Café Festival 2010 features 5 new European plays for young people presented in staged rehearsed readings in the intimate Theatre Café setting, the International Symposium, the Young Angels Award 2009 winner, Blowing, by fanSHEN, the UK premiere of European theatre serial Ank! Ang! and a workshop presentation of a new British play Arlo by John Retallack.

Events will take place at both the Unicorn Theatre and Southwark Playhouse (300 meters apart on Tooley Street).

Theatre Café Festival International Symposium 4 – 6 Nov For delegates information and bookings, please contact Company of Angels on 020 7928 2811 or generalmanager@companyofangels.co.uk

All readings and performances will be staged in English

Director: John RetallackAssociate Directors: Mia Theil Have (Company of Angels Associate),

Ellen McDougall (ATC Artistic Associate)Assistant Directors: Teresa Burns, Thomas Millington

UK PREMIERES OF SOME OF THE MOST EXCITING WRITERS IN EUROPE TODAY

Clyde and Bonnie / Austriaby Holger Schober translated by Zoë Svendsen

SAT 6 NOV, 2PM

It was all just a game and we were pretty damn good at it. It’s fun to play, when you’re winning. Tarantino is so yesterday… today it’s Clyde and Bonnie. Bonnie has always been called Bonnie – parents can be cruel. Clyde’s real name is Werner, but Bonnie calls him Clyde. They’re young. They’re in love. They rob banks.

Clyde and Bonnie won the Austrian Theatre for Young People ‘Stella’ award in 2009. The post-show panel discussion will include the author and the translator, Dr. Zoë Svendsen (Cambridge University).

Dead Girls Don't Grow Up / Spainby Beth Escudé i Gallès translated by John Ginman

FRI 5 NOV, 4PM

Grotesquely comic, down-to-earth and touchingly poetic, this play celebrates our capacity to use language and ritual for emotional survival. Struggling to come to terms with his grief, a musician starts an imaginary dialogue with his dead daughter. The story playfully explores how we hold on to what we value from the past while coping with challenges in the present.

Beth Escudé i Gallès was awarded the Joaquim Batrina award in 2001 and the Ramón Vinyes theatre prize in 2003.The post-show panel discussion will include the author and, subject to confirmation, the translator, John Ginman (Goldsmith University).

Anne and Zef / Hollandby Ad de Bont translated by Rina Vergano

FRI 5 NOV, 10.45AM

Young Albanian, Zef, is too scared to leave his house in case he’s gunned downin a long-standing blood feud. His life is starting to lose its meaning when he meets a girl - an angry girl with the kindest father in the world and a mother who doesn’t understand her. Her world is as big as the chestnut tree she can see from her window. Based on the diary of Anne Frank, Anne & Zef shows two young people who

refuse to give up, despite their extreme circumstances.

Anne and Zef was awarded the 12th Dutch-German theatre prize for young audiences in 2010. The post-show panel discussion will include the author and the translator, Rina Vergano.

Am I Comforting You Now? / Swedenby Ann-Sophie Bárány translated by Edward Buffalo Bromberg

SAT 6 NOV, 10.45AM

It’s all about survival – survival of the Unfit. The play explores and challenges the concept of age. By allowing the characters to shift their ages in mere seconds, our lifelong, recurring need for comfort is looked upon lovingly but with an acute sense of humor. Surreal and dream-like, the play explores and challenges our perception of time and the never-ending search for meaning and reassurance.

Am I Comforting You Now? premiered in 2009 under the direction of Suzanne Osten, the artistic leader of Unga Klara. It received rave reviews and played to sold-out houses in Stockholm.The post-show panel discussion will include the author and Suzanne Osten.

The Woods / Norwayby Jan Jesper Halletranslated by Nicholas W. Norris

Fri 5 NOV, 2PM

Julie Nilsen has warts and nobody wants to play with her. But one day she has sweets for everybody. Who is giving them to her and why? This beautifully imagined drama about the tragic disappearance of a ten-year-old girl is seen and told through the eyes of the very young.

The Woods won the first prize in The Wilhelm Hansen Foundation’s Nordic Playwriting Competition in 2001.The post-show panel discussion will include the author and director, translator and Company of Angels Associate, Øystein Brager.

ARLOBy John Retallack

A workshop performance

Tom and Grace are teenagers. They meet, fall in love and accidentally conceive a child. They live together in a caravan in the most beautiful landscape imaginable but the new baby has changed everything.

The play is a fresh perspective on childhood and how the love between a couple must be renegotiated when a new family member arrives in its midst. All three passionately want to express themselves, find fulfilment and be loved. But the parents’ ambitions and new baby’s ego drive them all apart.

A romantic play about the intensity of love and the pain of separation.

This is my mum and dadToday is their sixteenth wedding anniversaryThey’re both the same age and they love each otherThey haven’t expressed that very much over the years and they’ve done everything conceivable to destroy their love, but, look, they’re together nowThey’ll get on better when I’m gone because they could never agree about meI am the single most divisive thing that ever happened to them I was born and I tore their love apart That’s why they’ll be happy soonI’ll be gone and they’ll be back together once more

They will have survived meAnd I them

Arlo contains a number of songs by Lal Waterson, Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan and others, all sung live by the cast. Musical Director: Karl James.

John Retallack’s other plays include Hannah and Hanna, Risk, Club Asylum and Virgins; most recently his adaptation of Apples from Richard Milward’s novel played to great critical acclaim at the 2010 Latitude and Edinburgh festivals.

fanSHEN in association with Company of Angels and The Junction present

BLOWINGby Jeroen van den Bergtranslated by Rina Vergano

Stop.

Rewind.

StartAgain.

And this time,make sure it’s perfect.

UK Premiere of the Taalunie Best Play Award Winner.

* * * * “stimulating food for thought”Evening Standard on fanSHEN’s

SHOOTING RATS

What happens when family becomes just a game for other people to watch?BLOWING is the darkly comedic story of a disintegrated family which no one has got around to leaving yet. Award-winning company fanSHEN present a new piece of international theatre about dreams, destruction and deceit, written by one of the most talented contemporary playwrights in the Netherlands.

fanSHEN’s production of BLOWING is the winner of the Young Angels Theatremakers Award 2009.

www.fanshen.org.uk www.companyofangels.co.uk

ANK! ANG!

An international theatre serial commissioned by LABO07 (France)

directed by Mia Theil Have with the Theatre Café Festival ensemble and actors from Southwark Playhouse Young Company led by Paul Edwards

Ank! Ang! is a unique collaborative playwriting project about children, teenagers and adults from all across Europe, who discover their ability to grow wings and take off.

Developed by Karin Serres, co-founder of LABO07 in Paris, Ank! Ang! tells the story of the The Wild Gees, human migrants who traverse the skies of Europe in multi-lingual flights.Ank! Ang! is both their cry and the title of the serial play which tells their stories.

Each episode is written by a different author.

Leaving France, with an episode by Karin Serres, Ank! Ang! has so far swept across the skies of Germany, Sweden, Italy, and Portugal with episodes by Dirk Laucke, Eric Uddenberg, Frederica Iacobelli, Sylvain Levey and José Caldas. On the way, Ank! Ang! has been seen by audiences across those countries at the Teaterbiennalen (Sweden), Villa San Michele (Italy) and Théâtre de l'Est parisien, the Institut Suédois, and the Théâtre de la Tête Noire, and Théâtre Massalia (France).

Especially commissioned for Theatre Café Festival, we have two brand new episodes written by Company of Angels’ John Retallack and festival author Beth Escudé i Gallès, putting the UK and Spain on the Ank! Ang! map.

Theatre Café Festival is delighted to present the English-language premiere of Ank! Ang!, directed by Company of Angels Associate Mia Theil Have with a mixed cast of professional actors from the Theatre Café ensemble and members of the Southwark Playhouse Young Company.

EVENTS

TIME TUE 2 WED 3 THU 4 FRI 5 SAT 6UNICORN THEATRE10.45AM schools performances Anne & Zef ..Comforting You..?2.00PM schools performances The Woods Clyde and Bonnie4.00PM schools performances Dead Girls... Ank! Ang!

SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE3.00PM Blowing Blowing7.30PM Blowing Blowing Arlo Blowing Blowing9.00PM Symposium Festival Party

Reception

TICKETSFor Delegates Passes to the International Symposium:020 7928 2811 www.companyofangels.co.uk

For Southwark Playhouse:020 7407 0234 www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

VENUES:

Shipwright YardCorner of Tooley St & Bermondsey Street 147 Tooley StreetLondon SE1 2TF London SE1 2HZTel: 020 7407 0234 Tel: 020 7645 0500www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk www.unicorntheatre.com

PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

http://www.atc-online.com/

126 Cornwall Road London SE1 8TQ Tel: 020 7928 2811www.companyofangels.co.uk