Chapel Street by L.E Barnes (Luke McEwan; Game Of Thrones, Cymbeline)
Old Red Lion
2-21 August 2011
Directed by Cheryl Gallacher
Casting by Sophie Davies
Cast Includes: Daniel Kendrick and Ria Zmitrowicz

Chapel Street is an exciting London debut from writer L.E Barnes for the Old Red Lion Theatre this summer. A two hander about young people who have fallen off the education bandwagon who, for one night, try to have the time of their lives...

One night in the lives of two young people that education and society forgot. Always in sets for 4 and 5 for key subjects but still wanting to learn they missed the cut for theatre trips and inspiring teachers as a result they became disinterested and settled for a life of binge drinking, motherhood and manual labour. This follows them for one night as they try to live their lives to their fullest capacities.

The piece was written for, and about, the disenfranchised people of Great Britain who lacked the opportunity to be inspired in their early years and were denied exposure to the arts and culture by either teachers, parents or the government.

There is a certain generation of young people that, because they failed academically, are discarded as worthless and teaching them becomes a mere formality. As a result they get the worst teachers and are not accounted for in the budget for theatre trips and school holidays. When they leave school they are expected to go into manual labour and early motherhood but with the budget cuts this becomes a thinning possibility and they are left unemployed and uninspired. Art is for everyone. Sport is for everyone. But people need other people to introduce them to these things before they become an inspriation. A section of these young people are hard working and tenacious but still can't achieve because they were poorly taught and uninspired. Chapel Street explores how they vent their frustrations through binge drinking, they see drinking as the highest form of being alive.

The play is a piece of new writing targeting first time theatre goers using a creative and technical team of young people who are, or have been, close to falling into this category. It's a fantastic comedy relevant to modern society and the way we live our lives today and after every evening performance there will be rehearsed readings of new shorts with the same themes.

"all those rows of cradles and caskets, paid for over and over again by generation after generation but never owned. Theres only one thing left for it, live your life"

The project will cost in total £3,000 pounds and currently we have raised £1,750, we will be able to stage the play but with your support we can make it serve its purpose, being a high quality piece of social critique providing a platform for young people to say how they really live their lives and the situations so many people find themselves in.