I was reading a blog entry from 2020 about my play MEN DON'T TALK.
'I'm desperate to get it on it's feet - I wrote one or two characters with specific actors in mind and I'd love to be in a room with them rehearsing. I have the budget to do so - just not the theatre and the government permission - it's not safe, yet, of course. So the question is, for all of us, when will it be?'
I'm very nearly back in the room, as writer /director, in September 2024, with the very actors I wanted to be in that room with and I can't wait. A slight detour into a pandemic PGDE and x3 academic years worth of teaching later, I'm stepping back into the rehearsal room for 3 weeks. Life takes funny twist and turns. How does the saying go, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans'. It's been a strange old time, alright.
I am so grateful to have found Michelle McKay, Producer of Genesis Theatre Productions Ltd and be working with her to tour this play. It's had quite the journey from engagement conversations with my local mens shed members to a tour - its own quiet momentum grew from support from MSPs in a motion called 'Men Don't Talk' named after the play, in the Scottish Parliament in June 2022 raised by Christine Grahame MSP. It's taken 4.5 years from page to stage and we look forward to presenting the play to MSPs in the Scottish Parliament too.
I'm grateful to all those people who helped this play along the way: Caroline Adam, General Manager, Eastgate Theatre, Peebles; John McKewan and Duns Play Fest; Freda Douglas of the suicide prevention charity Inspiring Life, and ten brave, kind and generous men from The Peebles and District Mens Shed. Creative Scotland Touring Fund, the Scottish Mens Shed Association, Luminate, the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Mull Theatre, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and all our venues.
It's good to be back with this very special piece of work that's been a head and heart project. And 'Made in the Borders'. Come say hi if you can get to one of the venues on tour. Tour dates are here.
Cast: Dougal Lee, Billy Mack, Greg Powrie Dir: Clare Prenton, Design: Frances Collier; Lighting Kate Bonney; Sound John Kielty.
Producer: Michelle McKay for Genesis Theatre Productions Ltd.
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