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Compact Failure

Rules are rules. But in a place where true friendship is gold dust, rules beg to be broken. Chelle and Denise go way back. Denise, with her loud mouth and long extensions, made the same-old-same-old of prison life not so bad. But when Densie leaves, with no goodbye, no nothing, Chelle figures she's just run out of friendships. Then Ruthie walks in...

The story of their friendship unfolds in Jennifer Farmer's sharp and richly textured play. A production of Compact Failure by Clean Break Theatre Company, opened at Manchester Contact in October 2004, followed by a UK tour.

Bulletproof Soul

'What these Africans need to be learning about is air-con, man. I mean, I thought we were making poverty history!
What was Live 8 for, then?'

In Uganda, at a school for ex-child soldiers, Sol and Rena meet Alice. Sol is a charity worker, trying to keep his rebellious, seventeen-year-old sister Rena in line. Alice is Rena's age, but she's seen worse - and done worse - that either of them realise. As friendship develops, so does the risk of betrayal.

A sharp explosive play about trying to do the right thing, Bulletproof Soul opened at the Birmingham Rep in March 2007.

words words words

‘Are you good with words?”

 

“I have been known to turn a phrase or two.’

 

At a check-point a doctor, a peacekeeper, an aid worker and a journalist all try to cross over into Darfur.  But United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan and his crossword puzzle are holding things up.

 

After Rwanda, the world said never again.  words words words is part of seven short plays exploring the nature of the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan

 

“Which theatre, other than the Tricycle, would commission a series of short plays about Darfur? And where else in London would you find such an intelligent post-show discussion about the extent of the crisis and the international response to it? It is a potent reminder that theatre, among its myriad other functions, has a mission to inform.”  - The Guardian

 

words words words was commissioned and produced in 2006 by the Tricycle Theatre and directed by Nicolas Kent.  The seven plays of How Long Is Never: Darfur are published by Josef Weinberger.

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