After two successful Arts Council supported tours, Theatre Accord are looking for a co-producer, or a consortium of co-producers, and bookings, for their SPRING 2025, mid-scale tour.
THE COUNTESS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY
Directed by Dewi Johnson
The last of Louis XV’s mistresses is gifted a page from Chittagong by a member of the French Court.She looks after him, educates him, and confides in him. But will their love survive when ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity’ is the order of the day?
IN REPERTORY WITH
A SEAT BY THE WINDOW
Written and directed by Anthony Clark
Seat 17A has first-hand experience of what happened to Malaysian Airways Flight MH17 in July 2014. Encouraged by a well-meaning playwright, and a sceptical audience member, 17A tells its story in a series of tragi-comic scenes, exploring and making connections between this still unresolved crime against humanity, and those still being perpetrated in the Ukraine and beyond.
The plays can be booked to play in repertory or individually. Full creative teams, and cast of eight tbc.
PROVISIONAL TOURING SCHEDULE 2025
Rehearse: 20th Jan- 1st March
Tech /Dress 3rd -8th March
Dress/Previews 11th-15th March
Tour Wk 1 18th-22nd March
Press TBC
Tour Wk 2 25th -29th March
Tour Wk 3 1st-5th April
Tour Wk 4 8th-12th-April
Tour Wk 5 15th-19th April
Tour Wk 6 22nd-26th April
FULL WEEK:
Countess & Revolutionary: Tues (eve), Wed (mat& eve) Sat (eve)
Seat by the Window : Thurs (eve), Fri (eve) Sat (mat)
SPLIT WEEK
EITHER
Countess & Revolutionary: Tues (eve), Wed (mat & eve)
OR
Seat by the Window Thurs (eve), Sat (mat)
Countess & Revolutionary Fri (eve), Sat (mat)
Target Audiences:
Experience seekers
People from as many constituencies as can be encouraged to come!
People interested in looking at the present through the prism of the past.
BAME audiences
Secondary Schools, Further Education Colleges and Universities
Drama Schools and Youth Theatres
New Work Enthusiasts
14+
RUNNING TIME
2.15hrs including interval
COST
£1,500 per performance
or 70% Box Office whichever is the greater.
Founded in 2016 by director / playwright Anthony Clark, Theatre Accord is a touring company, based in Frome, Somerset.
Theatre Accord is committed to progressing inclusivity and representation, through the presentation of challenging dramatic stories full of real hope.
Theatre Accord celebrates the imagination and pushes boundaries with its innovative high-quality work.
Theatre Accord encourages people interested in performance to practise and develop their skills through regular workshops.
Theatre Accord actively seeks opportunities to co-produce with companies, and artists, who share its ethos.
Theatre Accord is committed to reducing the impact of its activities on the environment in response to the climate emergency.
Contact details:
Anthony Clark,
Director,
Theatre Accord,
10 Catherine Street,
Frome,
Somerset BA11 1DB
07939 101 463
THE COUNTESS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY
Directed by Dewi Johnson
The irrepressible Madame du Barry was the last of all Louis XV’s mistresses. The illegitimate daughter of a seamstress and a Catholic priest, she was finally accepted by the French Court in 1769. There she was giced a clever young page, bought from a slave trader in Chittagong, called Zamor. He believed himself to be the equal of anyone. Having no children of her own Mdm du Barry treated Zamor as her plaything, whilst at the same time giving him a broad education. Both outsiders to the Court theirs was a mutually dependent relationship, until the outbreak of the French Revolution, when Zamor’s newfound political conscience drove him to betray Madame Du Barry to the Committee of Public Safety. She was sent to the guillotine, and Zamor survived to play a part in changing the course of history.
The story of this play takes place in the past, but some of the events and the relationships between the characters are imagined history. The past is used as a prism to look at the present. The tone is zany, delighfully bawdy, and irreverent but has some serious things to say about class, history, race, war, and identity. The language is unequivocally contemporary. The play had a week’s development workshop, with Foppish Theatre supported by the Arts Council in 2021.
A SEAT BY THE WINDOW
Written and directed by Anthony Clark
Lying amongst the wreckage of Malaysian Airways, Flight MH17, shot down over East Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 lives on board, seat 17A has first-hand experience of what happened, and the subsequent inquiry into who was responsible. A compassionate playwright dumbfounded by the scale of tragedy, and an audience member impatient to see those responsible brought to justice, encourage 17A to tell its story. They are both surprised by the seat’s knowledge and its unique ability to shuffle and interpret the dreams of a separatist soldier to prophesy far greater crimes against humanity, and hint at pathways to peace.
The form and tone of this is highly theatrical, tragic-comic drama, captures the terror and the absurdity of events that occur because of the gulf between east and west ways of looking at the world. It solves nothing but shows theatre’s power to heighten consciousness and articulate moral outrage.
This imaginative, thought provoking, entertaining play for eight actors or more, is wriden in a variety of different styles. It was given a successful rehearsed reading to raise money for Ukrainian refugees at the Three Swans in Frome on Tuesday 22nd November 2022.
