About

by CARYL CHURCHILL
directed by KWAME OWUSU

 

Join us for the next production in our OT Lunchtime Plays series, Seagulls by Caryl Churchill.

 

Valery was an ordinary woman until she developed a gift: she can move things with her mind. ‘Telekinesis’, they call it. They’re going to study her at Harvard, then she’s going to go on a tour of America. She’s going stratospheric. But when she meets the ultimate fan, a man who has followed her throughout her whole career, something shifts: why won’t her powers work?

We are very excited to share Caryl Churchill’s early play Seagulls, first performed in 1978 and a response to the playwright’s own experience with writer’s block.

 

Tickets are £15 and include a glass of wine or soft drink. 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This event is a staged reading, without décor.

 

CONTENT WARNINGS

Our content warnings are updated as a production evolves through rehearsals and previews, so please note they may change between booking a ticket and seeing the production. 

Caryl Churchill is on of the country’s most prolific playwrights whose work frequently deals with feminist issues, abuses of power, and sexual politics.

Her work includes Objections to Sex and Violence (Royal Court Theatre); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Joint Stock UK Tour / Royal Court Theatre Upstairs); Vinegar Tom (Monstrous Regiment / UK Tour); Traps (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs); Cloud Nine (Joint Stock UK Tour / Royal Court Theatre); Three More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly / Royal Court Upstairs); Top Girls (Royal Court Theatre); Fen (Joint Stock UK Tour / Almeida Theatre); Softcops (RSC at the Pit); A Mouthful of Birds (with David Lan – Joint Stock UK Tour / Royal Court Theatre); Serious Money (Royal Court Theatre / Wyndham’s Theatre); Icecream (Royal Court Theatre); Mad Forest (Central School of Speech and Drama / Royal Court Theatre); Lives of the Great Poisoners (with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink – Second Stride UK Tour / Riverside Studios); The Skriker (National Theatre); Thyestes (translation from Seneca – Royal Court Theatre Upstairs); Hotel (with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink – Second Stride UK Tour / The Place); This is a Chair (London International Festival of Theatre / Royal Court Theatre); Blue Heart (Joint Stock UK Tour / Royal Court Theatre); Far Away (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs / Albery Theatre); A Number (Royal Court Theatre); A Dream Play (new version of Strindberg – National Theatre); Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Royal Court Theatre); Seven Jewish Children (Royal Court Theatre); A Ring A Lamp A Thing (opera with Orlando Gough – Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House); Love and Information (Royal Court Theatre); Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court Theatre); Here We Go (National Theatre); Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court Theatre); Escaped Alone (Royal Court Theatre); Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. (Royal Court Theatre); and What If, If Only (Royal Court Theatre).

Kwame Owusu is an award-winning writer and director based in London. He is passionate about bold stories that amplify unheard voices and explore what it means to survive and be alive in the world today. He was the Resident Assistant Director at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, 2021/2022.

Directing work includes: Small Revolutions (Talawa); Electra (LAMDA); The Unreturning and Blister (ArtsEd); Earthquakes in London (RWCMD); Dreaming and Drowning (Bush Theatre); The Bacchae (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre); Othello (ArtsEd); stoning mary (Arts University Bournemouth); Pomona (Edinburgh Festival Fringe) and The Wolf From The Door (John Thaw Studio Theatre).

Assistant / Associate Directing work includes: Titus Andronicus (RSC, upcoming at Hampstead Theatre); FANGIRLS, Closer, Britannicus, Scandaltown, Running With Lions, DNA (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre); Lyonesse (Harold Pinter Theatre / West End) and Romeo and Julie (National Theatre / Sherman Theatre).

Writing credits include: Dreaming and Drowning (Bush Theatre, Winner of the Mustapha Matura Award 2022, shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award 2022 and selected for the RSC’s 37 Plays Project 2023); HORIZON (Bush Theatre) and The Factory (English Touring Theatre).

 

About OT Lunchtime Plays

Lunchtime Plays at the OT hark back to our origins over fifty years ago when a group of actors adopted a room above the Orange Tree pub, performing with scripts in hand and nothing but the daylight through the windows to light performances. Chairs were placed around the edge of the room creating an in-the-round space that remains at the heart of our work all these years later.