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RWCMD presents NEW’23 – empowering the next generation of actors
Royal Welsh College’s NEW writing season showcases its commitment to empowering the next generation of actors, collaborating with the UK’s best writers and directors, and bringing new voices and diverse stories to the stage in Cardiff and London’s The Yard Theatre.
NEW '23
NEW’23 brings together some of the UK’s top creative talent: Philip Ridley working with director Wiebke Green, and Penelope Skinner with Blanche McIntyre. Mufaro Makubika and Titas Halder continue RWCMD’s relationship with Paines Plough, supporting and developing new and emerging voices.
Working with Sherman Theatre, RWCMD has also commissioned a play bringing together both the Welsh and English language. Mad Margot by Rebecca Jade Hammond and directed by Jac Ifan Moore, has been developed with Welsh language dramaturg Branwen Davies.
Focusing on training actors as creatives, this year selected final year students bring their own voices to the festival, performing their work alongside the commissioned playwrights in short plays reflective of the concerns of their generation.
Since its launch in 2014 NEW has produced 38 challenging, provocative and ambitious productions. This season’s four plays explore questions about everything from love to growing up, allegiance, politics, commitment, war and peace.
'No other drama school commissions work on this scale or with writers and directors of this profile, new writing has always been a vital part of the College’s drama training ethos, creating actors who have strong individual voices and who are as comfortable to create their own work as they are to work within classical repertoire.
So this year we’re also showcasing the theatre makers of the future, with our four new voices, mentored and supported by the College.'Jonathan MunbyRWCMD Director of Drama Performance
New writing feeds into the cultural life of the College. Philip Ridley is also working with students in a number of disciplines across RWCMD this year, and the students regularly work with its inhouse dramaturg, Chris Campbell, formerly of Royal Court, who has worked with some of the UK’s most exciting new playwrights.
This year the festival will take place over two weeks in Cardiff from 25th May – 1st June at RWCMD before transferring to London’s Yard Theatre for a further two weeks from 7th – 16th June.
The four new short plays written and directed by final year actors from RWCMD’s Richard Burton Company: Gabriella Foley’s Flicker, Melodie Karczewski’s The Taste of Healing, Liam Prince-Donnelly’s (un)Packing and Mackie Reyes’ Y?
Booking opens online 24th March.
NEW’23 Performance times
In The Forest of Starlight and Shrapnel
By Philip Ridley
Cardiff: 27, 31 May 7.15pm – 26, 30 May, 1 Jun 2.15pm
London: 13, 14,15,16 June
Intimate yet expansive, fierce yet tender, Philip Ridley’s new play weaves a startling and, at times, darkly comic tapestry of stories, exploring what happens when the suffering of war becomes the strangeness of peace.
Director: Wiebke Green
NEW VOICES
Flicker
By Gabriella Foley
Cardiff: 30 May, 4pm – 1 Jun, 9pm
London: 14, 16 June
I can’t trust my own head. It’s like it’s working against me.
Jo’s brain has always been filled with awful, violent, and perverted thoughts. Can Jo confront the validity of what’s in her head before she loses those that she loves? This dark comedy delves into the complexities of an obsessive mind.
