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  ROYAL COURT

  atc

  The Royal Court Theatre and ATC present

  COUNTRY MUSIC

  by Simon Stephens

  First performance at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs

  Sloane Square, London on 24 June 2004.

  Supported by Jerwood New Playwrights

  COUNTRY MUSIC

  by Simon Stephens

  Cast

  Jamie Carris Lee Ross

  Matty Carris Calum Callaghan

  Emma Carris Laura Elphinstone

  Lynsey Sergeant Sally Hawkins

  Director Gordon Anderson

  Designer Soutra Gilmour

  Lighting Designer Charles Balfour

  Composer Julian Swales

  Assistant Director Steve Marmion

  Casting Lisa Makin

  Production Manager Sue Bird

  Stage Managers Kieran Dicker, Marius Ronning

  Costume Supervisor lona Kenrick

  Company Voice Work Patsy Rodenburg

  THE COMPANY

  Simon Stephens (writer)

  For the Royal Court Herons, Bluebird (Choice Festival 1998).

  Other theatre includes: Christmas (Bush); One Minute (ATC); Port (Royal Exchange, Manchester). Radio includes: Five Letters Home to Elizabeth, Digging.

  Awards include: Pearson Award for Best Play 2001 (Port) Pearson Bursary at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, Arts Council Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court in 2000.

  Simon is Writers Tutor at the Royal Court Young Writers Programme.

  Gordon Anderson (director)

  For the Royal Court: Bluebird.

  Other theatre includes: One Minute, Out of Our Heads. Arabian Night, In the Solitude of Cotton Fields (ATC); Great Expectations (Old Vic, Bristol); The Threesome, The Reckless are Dying Out, The Grand Ceremonial (Lyric, Hammersmith); Rib Cage (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Outside on the Street (Gate).

  Opera includes: Manon (ETO); Hansel & Gretel (Scottish Opera); The Mikado (Grange Park Opera); The Silver Lake (Broomhill Opera).

  Comedy includes: Catherine Tate, The League of Gentlemen, Navelgazing, Susan & Janice, Conversations with my Agent and projects for the Channel 4 Sitcom Festival.

  Television: The Catherine Tate Show.

  Gordon is Artistic Director of ATC.

  Charles Balfour (lighting designer)

  Theatre includes: Bash (Glasgow Citizens); Cake & Grace (Jade TC/BAC/Birmingham Rep);Through the Leaves (Southwark Playhouse/Duchess); Ghost City (Sgript Cymru/Arcola); Witness, Happy Yet (Gate). Opera includes: Hagoromo, Thimble Rigging (Queen Elizabeth Hall); Jerwood Jazz Solos with Light (Wapping Power Station); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Broomhill Opera).

  Dance includes: eight-year collaboration with Richard Alston (Sadler’s Wells & tour); Matthew Hawkins (Linbury Studio, ROH); Rosemary Butcher (Queen Elizabeth Hall & European tour); Aletta Collins (Tour); Martin Lawrance (The Place).

  Caium Callaghan

  For the Royal Court: Food Chain, Young Writers Festival.

  Other theatre includes: The Straits (Paines Plough/Traverse/Hampstead); Whistle Down the Wind (Sydmonton Festival); Oliver (Palladium); Les Miserables (Palace); Hey Mr Producer (Lyceum). Television includes: Heartbeat, Stitch Up, Wall of Silence, The Bill, The Tiny Living Channel, I am a Rat, Gypsy Girl, Writing & Pictures, Black Hearts in Battersea, Children in Need, Hale & Pace. Film includes: Love Honour & Obey.

  Radio includes: The Parting, The Pool.

  Emma Dunton (ATC executive producer) Since joining ATC in 2001 Emma has produced In the Solitude of Cotton Fields by Bernard-Marie Koltes, Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig, Out of Our Heads by Susan Earl and Janice Phayre, One Minute by Simon Stephens and Excuses! by Joan Joel and Jordi Sanchez. Emma has also worked at Volcano Theatre Company producing and managing the national and international tours of Macbeth Director’s Cut, The Town That Went Mad and Private Lives. Previously she has worked at the British Council and on low-budget feature films in Los Angeles.

  Laura Elphinstone

  Laura has just graduated from Guildhall School of Music & Drama. This is her professional debut.

  Soutra Gilmour (designer)

  Theatre includes: Antigone (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow); Peter Pan (Tramway, Glasgow);The Birthday Party (Crucible, Sheffield);The Mayor of Zalamea (Everyman, Liverpool); Fool For Love (ETT); Macbeth (English Shakespeare Co); Hand in Hand (Hampstead); Modern Dance for Beginners (Soho); Animal (The Red Room); Tear from a Glass Eye, Les Justes, Ion, Witness and the Flu Season (Gate); Sun is Shining (BAC Critics’ Choice Season, 59E59, NY); The Women who Swallowed a Pin, Winter’s Tale (Southwark Playhouse); When the World was Green (Young Vic); Ghost City (59E59, NY);The Shadow of a Boy (RNT); Through the Leaves (Southwark Playhouse/Duchess). Opera includes: Coker, Weill, Bernstein (Opera Group, Buxton); Girl of Sand (Almeida Opera); Everyman (Norwich Festival); Eight Songs for a Mad King (world tour); El Cimmaron (Queen Elizabeth Hall); Twice Through the Heart (Cheltenham Festival); Bathtime (ENO); A Better Place (ENO, London Coliseum).

  Sally Hawkins

  Theatre includes: The Way of the World (Wilton Music Hall); Misconceptions (Octagon, Bolton); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing (Regent’s Park); Pera Palas (NT Studio); The Cherry Orchard, Romeo & Juliet (Theatre Royal, York); The Dybbuk, Accidental Death of an Anarchist (BAC); Svejk (Gate, London); The Whore of Babylon (Globe Education Centre); As You Like It (Buckingham Palace Gala).

  Television includes: The Young Visitors, Little Britain, Bunk Bed Boys, Byron, Promoted to Glory Tipping the Velvet, Casualty.

  Film includes: Vera Drake, Layer Cake, All or Nothing.

  Steve Marmion (assistant director)

  Theatre includes: Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); The Horrible History of Christmas (Sherman Theatre). As director theatre includes: 97 - A play about the Victims of Hillsborough (Edinburgh Festival); Rhinoceros (Chapter Arts); The Visit (Sherman Theatre); Madam Butterfly’s Child (Greenwich Festival, London One Act Theatre Festival); SK8 (Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Team Spirit (RNT/Theatre Royal, Plymouth); Miranda’s Magic Mirror (Stephen Joseph Theatre).

  Lee Ross

  For the Royal Court: Hammett’s Apprentice, Some Voices, The Lights, Children’s Day.

  Other theatre includes: M.A.D., Christmas (Bush); Bugsy Malone (Her Majesty’s); Spookhouse (Hampstead); The Neighbour (RNT); Tape (New Venture, Brighton).

  Television includes: The Hustle, Dunkirk, The Catherine Tate Show, Trial & Retribution, Amongst Barbarians, The Guilty, Shine on Harvey Moon, The Negotiator, Pressgang, Playing the Field.

  Film includes: Secrets & Lies, The English Patient, Rogue Trader, Metroland, Dreaming of Joseph Lees, Vigo - A Passion for Life, ID, Hard Men, Dockers, Sweet Nothing, Island on Bird Street, Secret Society.

  Julian Swales (composer)

  Julian Swales was the guitarist in 90s alt rock band Kitchens of Distinction and toured with them extensively in the United States. He concentrated on studio-based composition in the late 90s and now writes mainly for film, television, theatre and contemporary dance. Julian’s latest work includes Coma, a documentary for Channel 4, and Mummy: The Inside Story, a 3D movie currently showing at the British Museum. Capsule, A Kitchens of Distinction retrospective, was released last year.

  atc

  THIS AUTUMN ATC PRESENTS

  JEFF KOONS

  by Rainald Goetz

  Translated by

  David Tushingham

  Directed by Gordon Anderson

  Designed by Becs Andrews />
  Movement Director Dan O’Neill

  UK TOUR AND LONDON SEPT-NOV 2004

  www.atc-online.com

  ATC was founded in 1979 to tour innovative work throughout the UK. Over the years the company has developed a tradition of ensemble excellence and a reputation for originality and internationalism, picking up many awards along the way. Since Gordon Anderson and Emma Dunton joined the company in 2001 ATC has focused on contemporary work and forged dynamic partnerships with companies and artists from across the world.

  ATC recently worked with Simon Stephens developing ONE MINUTE in a co-production with Sheffield Crucible Theatre. The production went on a national tour before arriving at the Bush Theatre in London in February 2004. Other recent productions include the English language premiere of EXCUSES! by Jordi Sanchez and Joel Joan directed by David Grindley (in a co-production with the Barcelona-based company Krampack) and ARABIAN NIGHT by Roland Schimmelpfennig (in association with Soho Theatre). ATC has also worked with comedy writer-performers SUSAN & JANICE developing their hit show OUT OF OUR HEADS and produced Bernard Marie Koltes’ IN THE SOLITUDE OF COTTON FIELDS in a site-specific performance at the disused Aldwych Underground station on the Strand.

  Later in 2004 ATC will be producing the UK premiere of German play JEFF KOONS by Rainald Goetz. This production is supported by the Linbury Trust, with a design by Bees Andrews which was awarded Overall Winner of the 2003 Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design.

  ‘Anderson’s sensitive, precise direction has paid off brilliantly here … the meticulous acting is as persuasive as the direction.’

  The Times ***** (One Minute)

  Administrator: Jenni Kershaw

  ATC, Malvern House, 15-16 Nassau Street,

  London WIW 7AB

  T: 020 7735 8311 F: 020 7735 1031

  E: [email protected] www.atc-online.com

  ATC is funded by Arts Council England

  THE ENGLISH STAGE COMPANY AT THE ROYAL COURT

  The English Stage Company at the Royal Court opened in 1956 as a subsidised theatre producing new British plays, international plays and some classical revivals.

  The first artistic director George Devine aimed to create a writers’ theatre, ‘a place where the dramatist is acknowledged as the fundamental creative force in the theatre and where the play is more important than the actors, the director, the designer’. The urgent need was to find a contemporary style in which the play, the acting, direction and design are all combined. He believed that ‘the battle will be a long one to continue to create the right conditions for writers to work in’.

  Devine aimed to discover ‘hard-hitting, uncompromising writers whose plays are stimulating, provocative and exciting’. The Royal Court production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in May 1956 is now seen as the decisive starting point of modern British drama and the policy created a new generation of British playwrights. The first wave included John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, John Arden, Ann Jellicoe, N F Simpson and Edward Bond. Early seasons included new international plays by Bertolt Brecht, Eugène lonesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre and Marguerite Duras.

  The theatre started with the 400-seat proscenium arch Theatre Downstairs, and in 1969 opened a second theatre, the 60-seat studio Theatre Upstairs. Some productions transfer to the West End, such as Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde, Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, Conor McPherson’s The Weir, Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth and My Night With Reg. The Royal Court also co-produces plays which have transferred to the West End or toured internationally, such as Sebastian Barry’s The Steward of Christendom and Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking (with Out of Joint), Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (with Druid Theatre Company), Ayub Khan Din’s East is East (with Tamasha Theatre Company, and now a feature film).

  Since 1994 the Royal Court’s artistic policy has again been vigorously directed to finding and producing a new generation of playwrights. The writers include Joe Penhall, Rebecca Prichard, Michael Wynne, Nick Grosso Judy Upton, Meredith Oakes, Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson, Judith Johnson, James Stock, Jez Butterworth, Marina Carr, Phyllis Nagy, Simon Block, Martin McDonagh, Mark Ravenhill, Ayub Khan Din, Tamantha Hammerschlag, Jess Walters, Ché Walker, Conor McPherson, Simon Stephens, Richard Bean, Roy Williams, Gary Mitchell, Mick Mahoney, Rebecca Gilman, Christopher Shinn, Kia Corthron, David Gieselmann, Marius von Mayenburg, David Eldridge, Leo Butler, Zinnie Harris, Grae Cleugh, Enda Walsh, Marcos Barbosa, Roland Schimmelpfennig, DeObia Oparei, Vassily Sigarev, the Presnyakov Brothers and Lucy Prebble. This expanded programme of new plays has been made possible through the support of ASK Theater Projects and the Skirball Foundation, The Jerwood Charity, the American Friends of the Royal Court Theatre and many in association with the Royal National Theatre Studio.

  photo: Andy Chopping

  In recent years there have been record-breaking productions at the box office, with capacity houses for Roy Williams’ Fallout, Terry Johnson’s Hitchcock Blonde, Caryl Churchill’s A Number, Jez Butterworth’s The Night Heron, Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl, Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth, David Hare’s My Zinc Bed and Conor McPherson’s The Weir, which transferred to the West End in October 1998 and ran for nearly two years at the Duke of York’s Theatre.

  The newly refurbished theatre in Sloane Square opened in February 2000, with a policy still inspired by the first artistic director George Devine. The Royal Court is an international theatre for new plays and new playwrights, and the work shapes contemporary drama in Britain and overseas.

  AWARDS FOR ROYAL COURT

  Jez Butterworth won the 1995 George Devine Award, the Writers’ Guild New Writer of the Year Award, the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy for Mojo.

  The Royal Court was the overall winner of the 1995 Prudential Award for the Arts for creativity, excellence, innovation and accessibility. The Royal Court Theatre Upstairs won the 1995 Peter Brook Empty Space Award for innovation and excellence in theatre.

  Michael Wynne won the 1996 Meyer-Whitworth Award for The Knocky. Martin McDonagh won the 1996 George Devine Award, the 1996 Writers’ Guild Best Fringe Play Award, the 1996 Critics’ Circle Award and the 1996 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Marina Carr won the 19th Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (1996/7) for Portia Coughlan. Conor McPherson won the 1997 George Devine Award, the 1997 Critics’ Circle Award and the 1997 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Weir. Ayub Khan Din won the 1997 Writers’ Guild Awards for Best West End Play and Writers’ Guild New Writer of the Year and the 1996 John Whiting Award for East is East (co-production with Tamasha).

  At the 1998 Tony Awards, Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane (co-production with Druid Theatre Company) won four awards including Garry Hynes for Best Director and was nominated for a further two. Eugene lonesco’s The Chairs (co-production with Theatre de Complicite) was nominated for six Tony awards. David Hare won the 1998 Time Out Live Award for Outstanding Achievement and six awards in New York including the Drama League, Drama Desk and New York Critics Circle Award for Via Dolorosa. Sarah Kane won the 1998 Arts Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting. Rebecca Prichard won the 1998 Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright for Yard Gal (co-production with Clean Break).

  Conor McPherson won the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play for The Weir. The Royal Court won the 1999 ITI Award for Excellence in International Theatre. Sarah Kane’s Cleansed was judged Best Foreign Language Play in 1999 by Theater Heute in Germany. Gary Mitchell won the 1999 Pearson Best Play Award for Trust Rebecca Gilman was joint winner of the 1999 George Devine Award and won the 1999 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Glory of Living.

  In 1999, the Royal Court won the European theatre prize New Theatrical Realities, presented at Taormina Arte in Sicily, for its efforts in recent years in discovering and producing the work of young British dramatists.

  Roy
Williams and Gary Mitchell were joint winners of the George Devine Award 2000 for Most Promising Playwright for Lift Off and The Force of Change respectively. At the Barclays Theatre Awards 2000 presented by the TMA, Richard Wilson won the Best Director Award for David Gieselmann’s Mr Kolpert and Jeremy Herbert won the Best Designer Award for Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis. Gary Mitchell won the Evening Standard’s Charles Wintour Award 2000 for Most Promising Playwright for The Force of Change. Stephen Jeffreys’ I just Stopped by to See the Man won an AT&T: On Stage Award 2000.

  David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky won the Time Out Live Award 2001 for Best New Play in the West End. Leo Butler won the George Devine Award 2001 for Most Promising Playwright for Redundant. Roy Williams won the Evening Standard’s Charles Wintour Award 2001 for Most Promising Playwright for Clubland. Grae Cleugh won the 2001 Olivier Award for Most Promising Playwright for Fucking Games. Richard Bean was joint winner of the George Devine Award 2002 for Most Promising Playwright for Under the Whaleback. Caryl Churchill won the 2002 Evening Standard Award for Best New Play for A Number. Vassily Sigarev won the 2002 Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for Plasticine. Ian MacNeil won the 2002 Evening Standard Award for Best Design for A Number and Plasticine. Peter Gill won the 2002 Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play for The York Realist (English Touring Theatre). Ché Walker won the 2003 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright for Flesh Wound. Lucy Prebble won the 2003 Critics’ Circle Award and the 2004 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright for The Sugar Syndrome.

  ROYAL COURT BOOKSHOP

  The Royal Court bookshop offers a diverse selection of contemporary plays and publications on the theory and practice of modern drama. The staff specialise in assisting with the selection of audition monologues and scenes. Royal Court playtexts from past and present productions cost £2.