Theatre News

Five Playwrights Create 24-Hour Election Drama

27 April 2010

Theatre company Supporting Wall is commissioning five playwrights to create “the first five plays to be written under a new parliament” which will
be written, cast and rehearsed within 24 hours of election night on 6 May.

Election Drama: A Theatrical Response will be staged for one night only at London’s New Players Theatre on 8 May, and feature work by writers including: Che Walker (The Frontline, Been So Long); Rex Obano (Slaves); Anders Lustgarten (A Day at the Racists); and Phil Willmott (director of Once Upon a Time at the Adephi).

Will Young, producer for Supporting Wall, said: “We’re hoping to create a true moment of political theatre – immediate, edgy and raw. At the very least, it will be a more productive way to spend the election period than obsessing over Swingometers.”

There is one playwright still to be announced, and the evening will be compered by a ‘special guest host’. All profits from the night are being donated to the Hansard Society, an independent charity promoting political engagement and open government.

Supporting Wall’s previous credits include the professional premiere of Philip Ridley‘s BNP-based Moonfleece, which toured nationally earlier this year.