HighTide Plays: 1: Ditch; peddling; The Big Meal; Lampedusa

Description

HighTide Theatre Festival was founded in 2006 and has since become one of the most prolific homes of new writing. It has been described by the Telegraph as "one of the little gems of the artistic calendar in Britain" and by the Daily Mail as "famous for championing emerging playwrights and contemporary theatre". 2016 marks ten years of HighTide, during which time numerous emerging playwrights and new plays have shot to prominence. This anniversary volume brings together four of the key plays that have come out of HighTide Theatre Festival's programme during this time: Ditch by Beth Steel is a clear-eyed look at how we might behave when the conveniences of our civilisation are taken away, and a frightening vision of a future that could all too easily be ours. peddling by Harry Melling is a poetic monologue about a young homeless man, which confronts whether it's a good thing to turn a blind eye and let people get on with their lives, or whether that's exactly how people fall through the cracks. The Big Meal by American writer Dan LeFranc is a deeply comic and touching drama that looks at love, marriage, raising children and the general onslaught of life. Lampedusa by Anders Lustgarten follows the day-to-day life of those whose job it is to enforce our harsh new rules on immigration: an Italian coastguard and a payday lender from Leeds. All now established in their own right, these four plays demonstrate HighTide's extraordinary role in identifying and nurturing writers tackling some of the biggest issues of today. The volume was published to coincide with HighTide's 10th annual festival in September 2016 and features an introduction by HighTide Artistic Director, Steven Atkinson.

Beth Steel was part of the Invitation Group for Emerging Writers at the Royal Court and later the attached to Theatre503 through the 503/five writers' programme. Her first full length play, Ditch, opened at the HighTide festival in 2010, later transferring to the Old Vic Tunnels. Harry Melling began his career at eleven-years-old appearing in the Harry Potter films playing Dudley Dursley. He subsequently went on to train at LAMDA. His first play, peddling, premiered in 2014 in a production by HighTide, before being revived in 2015. Dan LeFranc received the 2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for Sixty Miles to Silver Lake, premiered by Page 73 Productions and Soho Rep. His most recent play, The Big Meal, received its world premiere at American Theater Company in Chicago, its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2012, and its UK premiere at HighTide Theatre Festival. His other plays include Troublemaker or The Freakin Kick-A Adventures of Bradley Boatright, Origin Story, Bruise Easy, Night Surf, In The Labyrinth, The Fishbone Fables, Backyard, Kill The Keepers, and Catgut. Anders Lustgarten's other work includes The Insurgents (2007), Enduring Freedom (2008), The Punishment Stories (shortlisted for the 2007 Verity Bargate Award), an adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek's The Police (BAC 2007), The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie (2010) for the National Theatre Studio and If You Don't Let Us Dream Then We Won't Let You Sleep (Royal Court, 2013) and Shrapnel (Arcola, 2015). He also won the inaugural Harold Pinter Playwrights Award with a commission from the Royal Court in 2011.

Steel's text is an evocative mix of farm metaphors, punchy dialogue and moments of dreamy wistfulness * Tribune on 'Ditch' * Feels like the intersection of Beckett and Albee * New York Times (Critics' Choice) on Harry Melling's 'peddling' * A life-in-overdrive comic drama . . . Dan LeFranc's snappy dialogue captures the tumultuous tenor of family gatherings * New York Times on 'The Big Meal' * Lampedusa is one of the most gently enticing pieces of storytelling you will see, softly encroaching on the moral consciousness like a lullaby. . . . Lustgarten's descriptions of drowning have a power that comes from fleshy detail matched by poetic virtuosity. There's dark beauty here, on the sharp end of Europe's implosion * The Times on 'Lampedusa' *