Waiting Room
Created and performed by Benji Ming and Richard O’Rourke
Two men wait in a waiting room. We don’t know where they are. We don’t know who they are. All we know is that they are very different.
This piece was originally created as an improvised film.
Benji and Richard are keen to see how it transfers to a live theatre piece.
Benji has been an actor/performer/writer/entertainer for 35 years, also a gardener, tree surgeon and painter, living on a canal boat in Oxford since 1994. Richard is from Barnsley, has had a varied career, including as a hypno- therapist. He writes and records music with a band, and makes films and music videos.
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Queer Lady M
1623 Theatre Company
Written by Ben Spiller and Shane Gabriel
Performed by Shane Gabriel
Tonight Shane’s been stood up. Lonely and lost he turns to Shakespeare’s fierce queen for strength.
But how far can becoming your idol help you find yourself when you are anxious and alone.
Queer Lady M brings together devised performance and Shakespeare while exploring the real life experiences of working class gender fluid artist Shane Gabriel.
1623 is an award-winning, five-star Shakespeare theatre company based at QUAD, a thriving arts centre in the heart of Derby, UK. We aspire to give voices to marginalised people in response to Shakespeare and the world today. Our mission is to make great theatre, support artists, engage learners and work with communities while being accessible, inclusive and diverse. We want to inspire, surprise and affect you with Shakespeare’s work through theatre/digital performances, learning workshops, participatory activities and training courses.
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World Within A World
Second Voice Players
Written by Katrina Rimmer & Georg Kolling
Performed by Faisal Fdi, Georg Kolling, Simon Parr, Sandrine Rendel, Marta Rybarczyk, Fed Kassatkin, Lorna Giezot
World Within The World is a short play written by two members of Second Voice Players. Part surrealist, part Greek Tragedy, it tells the story of Blake, a man who finds himself washed upon a deserted shore.
As he comes to his senses he is met by a figure who informs him that he is the only survivor of the recently sunk cruise ship that he and his wife were on.
As Blake starts to grieve for his loss, the Figure informs him that his wife can in fact be saved, but only at a cost. He must journey with the Figure through the Seven Seas of Consciousness, only then will he find out what sacrifice he will need to make.
Second Voice Players is a small amateur theatre group running in Oxford since 2015. It is a broad group with lots of members for whom English is not their native language. They have put on yearly small collections of plays, including those written by the group.