One workplace. One uniform. Seven people thrown together.
Whilst trying to remain optimistic in the face of the daily grind, seven employees are forced to face their own reality in the company of others. Out of rules, order and return to work forms comes a world of hopes, dreams, desperation and fear.
I STILL GET EXCITED WHEN I SEE A LADYBIRD is the latest production from PAPERCUT THEATRE and will run for one week, 16-20th of August at the award-winning Theatre 503. It centres on the lives of seven, stationery shop employees and is a dark, witty exploration of form, character, and bureacracy.
"McCullough writes with wit and wisdom. She has a rhythmic ear and a sense of tenderness and wit. She masters the dramatic monologue with some control, avoiding inert exposition... Her characters are written with compassion and a sense of truth. There is openness to directorial intervention that is rare in English playwriting. But it is the formal control that I most admire. It is a considerable achievement.” - Simon Stephens
As an unfunded company Papercut is committed to supporting itself and finding new ways to raise money. Your support will help our production immensely. Any funds raised will be put towards production costs, such as design and marketing, to help realise this exciting and vibrant play, giving it the production it so richly deserves. Papercut Theatre is a company committed to developing and promoting new writing, with a special emphasis on interrogating the writer/ director relationship. This project will be our most daring investigation of this so far as the text, a series of seven monologues, can be cut and interspliced in any way the company wishes. This is our first production since CUT OFF which had some of the most exciting writers around responding to arts funding cuts at Theatre 503 and Tristan Bates Theatre.
THE PLAYWRIGHT
Katie McCullough is a graduate of Bournemouth Media School and the Royal Court, London. Based in Hertfordshire, she is the playwright in residence for Theatrix Performing Arts in St. Albans and has received support from the Arvon Foundation and ICA Labs. Plays include Let Them Eat Cake! (Box Of Tricks), That’s What Christmas Means To Me (Blackshaw Theatre Company), Post Everything (Horse’s Mouth Theatre Company), Food For Thought (Cut Off, Tristan Bates Theatre) Love-Aged-Trilogy (Interrobang, The Book Club), Regina V. Cooper [2010] (STARTS) and several adaptations for Theatrix. www.katiemccullough.co.uk
THE DIRECTOR
Melissa Dunne is Artistic Director at Papercut Theatre. She trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, the Young Vic Directors Summer School, and was recently invited by the Royal Shakespeare Company to participate in a series of workshops for emerging directors. She has directed development workshops at the Young Vic and Theatre 503, and rehearsed readings at RADA and the Soho Theatre. Work includes commissioning and curating Cut Off at Theatre 503 and Tristan Bates Theatre, a response to recent cuts to arts funding. Directing includes The Phantom and Pain Management (Part of Rapid Write Response at Theatre 503), Extraction (Etcetera Theatre), Miss Julie (Albany Theatre), The Space Between (Theatre 503 & Smirnoff Underbelly).
