Summer sessions start with double bill

Jun 3 2009 by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

CELEBRATING the cream of its writing crop, Live Theatre on Newcastle Quayside is presenting double bill Watershed & Crush tomorrow from 8pm.

In the first of its New Writing Studio Session summer two-handers, audiences can enjoy a pair of rehearsed readings.

The first, Rosalind Wyllie’s script Watershed, is a reworking of her story about a group of 30-something university friends.

It will reveal how Rosalind, a member of Live’s Writers’ Group, has progressed the story following its success at the 2-4-1 readings in March.

She has been proving a hit on the writing circuit since deciding in 2001 to sell her flat, leave her nine-to-five job and travel to Brazil to begin work on her first novel.

The end result, Everything You Ever Wanted, about two girls who work at a strip club for very different reasons, was published last August

More recently, Rosalind was picked to write a short play - Smoke and Mirrors - for the Northumberland Touring Company’s 4-Play season.

The second half of tomorrow’s bill showcases Crush, a gripping work by award-winning writer Paul Charlton.

In it, Paul, from Bishop Auckland, explores the nature of modern obsession in a marriage that begins to unravel under the pressures of economic recession and physical temptation.

While Paul trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, he has always been interested in writing.

In 1999, at just 16 years old, he was one of 10 young writers commissioned to write a short play for Paines Plough’s production of Black on White Shorts which was staged at Live Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Bolton Octagon and Bristol Old Vic.

The subsequent full-length production of the play, entitled Love, Sex and Cider, went on to win a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2003.

Paul has now written extensively for Live’s Youth Theatre and is also working with Tristan Bates Theatre in London.