Life & Death of a Journalist @ VAULT Festival 2020
WE NEED YOUR HELP to raise £2000 - the remaining costs to produce my new play LIFE AND DEATH OF A JOURNALIST which will run for one week at the acclaimed VAULT Festival 2020 , February 25 - March 1 2020!
Award-winning playwright Jingan Young makes a ferocious return to theatre with a new play on sex, censorship and the ethics of journalism – how much are you willing to sacrifice in order to uncover ‘the truth’? It stars Lucy Roslyn in the title role, writer/performer of the hit show Orlando which won the VAULT Festival’s Origins Award in 2019.It will be directed by acclaimed Max Lindsay (Mother of Him, Park Theatre).
Watch the trailer above!
Jingan writes about the play in the Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/dec/10/hong-kong-china-the-life-and-death-of-a-journalist
Why £2000?
Even with private investment, we can only currently cover the cost of the minimum VAULT festival commitment and preliminary artists' fees (3 x actors, 1x director, 1x technical operator and 1x lighting designer, 1x sound designer, 1 production designer).
We still need funds to pay salaries, set design (props/costumes/construction), and for marketing (trailer, flyers, programmes)!
My producers and I are taking no fee or salary for this show! GoFundMe take 2.9% off the total raised.
Who am I?
I'm an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, producer ('Foreign Goods', Oberon Books) and journalist (Guardian, Hong Kong Free Press, SCMP, LRB).
For almost a decade, I have dedicated my theatre career to producing (for no salary or profit) writers' work from all backgrounds though largely British East Asian and South Asian voices. I single-handedly pitched, curated and edited the publication of the first BEA anthology here in the UK called 'Foreign Goods'. The foreword was written by David Henry Hwang and it has sold over 100 copies throughout the world in its first year. Besides this, with my company Pokfulam Rd Productions , we produced grassroots theatre of exciting short plays at venues such as the Arcola Theatre and Theatre503. Again, the creatives were so enthusiastic about the project, all profits went into renting the space(s).
In October, I raised funds for a fully funded R&D to support the development and public reading of my new play at the Park Theatre in October and raised it within a week with incredible support. Following the reading, I secured partial production support from a private investor and I have assembled an incredible team with Archie Macleod and Alex Chang to co-produce the play with me for Vault Festival. I am so honoured that Max Lindsay will direct the play following his work on its R&D, Lucy Roslyn will star as the main character and we already have the extremely high in demand sound designer Nicola Chang confirmed to write original music for the show!
Who is involved?
CAST
LUCY ROSLYN in the title role of LAURA.
Lucy Roslyn plays LAURA, a rising star reporter who is forced to make a life-changing decision which challenges her core beliefs. Will she betray the ones she loves?
Lucy is an award-winning performer and playwright. Her debut play, The State Vs John Hayes, began at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2013 going on to perform at the Theatre Royal Bath, The Lowry, The Kings Head, OSH Brooklyn and the Brighton Fringe, where it won an Argus Angel Award in 2015.
As Creative Director of BoonDog Theatre Lucy returned to Edinburgh with Goody at The Pleasance in 2017 (winning the "Les Enfants Terribles' Greenwich Partnership Award") and again with Showmanship, which later transferred to the Theatre 503 as part of their "Best of the Fest" season, and then the Brighton Fringe. Most recently, Orlando debuted at The Vaults festival (winning an "Outstanding New Work" Award) in 2019 before going on to Edinburgh.
Outside of BoonDog, she has appeared in productions including Mr Happiness & The Water Engine at the Old Vic Tunnels, Crystal Springs and Chicken Shop at the Park Theatre, and A Third at the Finborough Theatre.
MELISSA WOODBRIDGE as VICKY.
Melissa will play VICKY, charming, biting, beautiful & ferocious, she is the managing editor of a global media newspaper with pro-China leanings who offers our protagonist LAURA the role of a lifetime.
Melissa trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She’s recently finished a run of the hugely successful ‘Wind of Heaven’ at the Finborough. Over the past few years she‘s appeared in 'Blithe Spirit' atthe Gielgud and on tour, ‘Walking the Tightrope’ at Soho and Edinburgh Festival and was at The Park, Southwark, Theatre 503 and The Pleasance. Previously she was in Berkoff's 'Kvetch', Jack Thorne's 'Whiff Whaff', David Greig’s 'Cello’ and Theatre Delicatessen's 'Doll's House'. She was in also in the West End with 'Female of the Species' and has toured with Theatre Royal Bath. She is a VoiceOver artist and audio book reader as well as a trustee for Touchstone, using drama to help children on the autistic spectrum.
DIRECTOR Max Lindsay
Max was Resident Assistant Director at Chichester Festival Theatre for Festival 2018 where he assisted Tinuke Craig, Dale Rooks and Daniel Evans. He was previously at Nuffield Southampton Theatres. He trained at East 15. Recent theatre credits include as Director the critically acclaimed, Mother of Him (Park Theatre 200), Ripped (Underbelly, Edinburgh), Angry (Southwark Playhouse), Foreign Goods 2 and Broken Gargoyles (Theatre503), Consensual, The Odyssey, Girls Like That, Henry IV, His Dark Materials, The Laramie Project Circle, The Wardrobe, Feathers in the Snow, Great Expectations, The Three Musketeers and Cymbeline (Nuffield Theatre).
SOUND DESIGNER Harry Blake
Some of his recent projects include CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN (West End and national tour), WILD EAST (Young Vic) and THE MARCH ON RUSSIA (Orange Tree). My musicals include THE SANDMAN (Southwark Playhouse) and THOR & LOKI (Hightide, Assembly Festival and The Lowry). In 2017, he was appointed Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at West Yorkshire Playhouse.
At the moment, He is working on music for Barney Norris’s retelling of BLOOD WEDDING at Salisbury Playhouse. He is also writing a musical adaptation of BREWSTER’S MILLIONS with Hattie Naylor for Storyhouse Chester.
LIGHTING DESIGNER Anna Reddyhoff
Anna is the Lighting Designer of the current UK Tour of The Strange Case of Jekyll & Hyde by Arrows & Traps Theatre Co and is working on not one, but two productions of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves this Christmas (oh yes she is!). Previous Lighting Design credits include; Albion in Flames - Union Theatre; Space Age Love Songs - Hen & Chickens; The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe - Lichfield Garrick; The Re-Birth of Meadow Rain - Edinburgh Festival 2019; Pops - Edinburgh Festival 2019, Reformation - The White Bear; Flinch - The Old Red Lion; Emilia - Vaudeville Theatre (Associate LD to Zoe Spurr); Heart The Play - The Vaults London, Sara Pascoe: Lads Lads Lads - Wyndham’s Theatre; Tim Vine: Sunset Milk Idiot - Hammersmith Apollo; One Man Two Guvnors - Lichfield Garrick; Once Upon a Mattress - Lichfield Garrick; Rent - A3 Arena.
Donations £500 or more will be gifted with a copy of Oberon Books' 'Foreign Goods', a collection of British East Asian plays signed by its editor, Jingan., a complimentary ticket to a show of your choice at the festival and drinks with the cast and creative team after.
PLEASE SHARE THIS GOFUNDME!
Links:
www.jinganyoung.co.uk
twitter.com/jinganyoung
facebook.com/pokfulamrdprod
Social Media for the Play #lifeanddeath
twitter.com/lifedeathplay
Instagram.com/lifedeathplay
