Flower Power (All things Orchid)

We've had a fair few busy weeks here at TwentySomething. The Orchid  had it's Edinburgh previews at Assembly Roxy and it was time for our second (probably going to be) annual TwentySomething Pub Quiz. It's been non-stop I tell you. 

The Orchid 

The Orchid previewed over the weekend of April 21st/22nd at Assembly Roxy and went pretty darn well. Thanks to everyone who came along and, as always, to our amazing cast of actors. Both they, and Low, worked incredibly hard to rehearse not one, but two plays. Because at TwentySomething we enjoy making things just a little more complicated than absolutely necessary. 

The Orchid tells the story of a couple, Alex and Sam, and their relationship. The audience watches as it grows and develops. Because of how I wrote it, we wanted to emphasize that this couple could be absolutely anyone and that the important thing is who they are to each other and who they are together. To that end we had a different couple each night. Saturday was John and Tom, Sunday was Rowan and Suzanna. And if you come see the show in Prague, you'll see a different couple on each of the four nights we're performing! (Oh yeah, four plays for Prague - nbd) I'm so glad we were able to make the show work this way and so excited to see our two new couple combinations in rehearsals over the next few weeks. 

Can we also have a moment to appreciate this gorgeous image? Cat Thomson is amazing. And we're very close to having this image turned into beautiful posters, courtesy of the totally wonderful Katie Wilkinson (who designed our Hell Has No Fury poster) who we've so glad has been able to work with us again! 

Cat also popped along to our dress rehearsal for our Sunday show and snapped some lovely photos of Rowan and Suzanna. 

Pub Quizzin'

It's safe to say our pub quiz was another riotous success. We managed to raise over £150 for the Prague Fringe Fund. Our winners were.... my family. They went home with four tickets to Summerhall's Courtyard Ceilidh and a bottle of rum (my sister disappeared pretty sharpish with that.) As always we had a plethora of fantastic raffle prizes. The winners went home with booze, vouchers and even more tickets for Summerhall events, plus a Tennant's brewery tour. 

Thanks to everyone who came along. We appreciate your support SO MUCH and literally wouldn't be able to keep doing what we're doing without it. 

If you weren't able to make it along, here's a question for you. This was part of our Explain a film plot badly round. Basically, what's the film? 

 

Sudden inflation causes a housing crisis

Tweet us your answers! 

It's less than two weeks before I head off to Prague, the rest of the team will be following quickly afterwards. Make sure you're following us on twitter and instagram to keep up with our time at Prague Fringe. We cannot wait to be back there! 

Sweeney x 

The Turn Vol. 1 Speak

The Turn kicked off last Saturday night with what we hope will be the first of many evenings like it. Vol. 1 Speak was host to a whole range of performers from singers to actors to playwrights to spoken word artists and dancers. It was a brilliant evening of performance and concluded, as was only proper, with an excellent ceilidh (top tip, at your next ceilidh event, as the band if they know the Sprial Dance - you will not regret it.) 

First things first I want to thank all of our amazing performers and I'm going to do that with the help of our gorgeous event photography, courtesy of Cat Thomson. 

Rachael Sweeney and John Crooks 

Rowan Hall and Rosie Al-Mulla (reading a piece from The Orchid)

Erin McGee who performed her play Scuttle

Matt Norris (singer/songwriter) 

Jess Matthew (poet)

Charlotte McLean (dancer) 

Steph Leach and Hannah Sutherst

We cannot say thank you enough to these amazing performers! And to everyone who braved the awful weather to make it to the show! 

So, on to the next one for TwentySomething. We have a few (LOL we're so busy) things coming up in the next few weeks.

Dates to Remember

April 21st and 22nd - The Orchid at Assembly Roxy 

May 6th - The Second Annual TwentySomething Fundraising Quiz 

May 30th-June 2nd - The Orchid at Prague Fringe Festival (if you happen to be in Central Europe, come check it out!) 

That's all from us 

Sweeney x

clappity clap. 

Ahoj Fringe Fans

Ahoj.

That means Hello in Czech.

Why do I know that?

Well, because
...
...
...
WE'RE GOING TO PRAGUE FRINGE 2018.

Yes, that's right, they're letting us back, and we are so excited.

We're taking our new show The Orchid, another play by me, which is looking better and better by the week.

We'll be performing at Cafe Club Misenska from 29th May to 2nd June, but if you can't wait until then, (or don't fancy the luxury of a RyanAir return trip) keep an eye on our social media because as usual, we'll be previewing it in Edinburgh before we go.

I don't want to give away too much about The Orchid just yet, especially as we have another exciting project to keep you occupied, but I will share the image you might have seen floating around our Facebook/Instagram

This is our gorgeous poster image taken by the wonderful Cat Thomson. 

Those are, of course, Low's hands, which also made an appearance on our Hell Has No Fury image. Although this time they are a little more recognizable and much colder given this was taken in the meadows at 10am in the middle of December. Never say we don't suffer for our art.

Our first event of the year The Turn: Speak is getting well under way and we'll be releasing information about the artists who will be performing with us very soon.

It's all very exciting.

Sweeney x

New Year Same Us

I'm not entirely sure how it's 2018, I feel like I fell asleep and missed something. It feels like only yesterday that the evenings were filled with twinkly lights and mulled wine. Now everyone's doing dry January except me so I feel like an alcoholic and all the newly enthusiastic exercisers are filling up my gym so I can't get on an elliptical machine.

So yeah, Happy New Year.

At TwentySomething we're hitting the ground running in 2018 with a whole host of projects to get us through these cold and dreary days.

Our first project is something entirely new. That's right, for the first time TwentySomething are producing something that wasn't written by me! (I can sense relief across the board).
On March 10th we'll be presenting The Turn: Speak

turn (noun) 1. a short performance, especially one of a number given by different performers in succession
2. a change in direction, a development or change

Taking inspiration from the party tradition of ‘doing a turn’ and the joyful, expressive atmosphere of a ceilidh, The Turn is a place for some of the country’s brightest performers, writers, musicians and performing artists of all disciplines to come together in a showcase of exciting new work.

Speaking up, speaking out, finding our voices and using them for good – or ill – free speech, hate speech, lost languages and new dialects, speaking without any words at all, private conversation and continuous broadcasting to the world.

We're really excited about this new venture and are looking for artists and performers from all disciplines to get in touch and collaborate with us. There's more information on our Facebook page if you want to find our how to get involved!

After the excitement of The Turn, we're going back to our roots with another play by me...
In April we will present The Orchid  a play about love and relationships and all that fun stuff. We're workshopping it at the moment and have been super lucky to get some amazing actors to come along and help us out (it only took bribing them with KitKats and Fruit Pastilles).
We'll let you all know more about The Orchid later on in the year so watch this space....

And that's us, starting as we mean to go on!

Sweeney x

Life Lessons from Edinburgh Fringe 2017

Don't worry, the Fringe didn't destroy us, we're still here. However some serious post-Festival detoxing has been required. I've almost forgotten it happened at all...

We had an amazing Fringe, great audiences, brilliant feedback, all in all a fine old time. 

At the grand distance of almost two months PF (that's Post-Fringe) I've tried to pull together all the things we learned over our first Edinburgh Fringe. 

And here it is, the TwentySomething Guide to Surviving the Fringe 

1. Flyers are not that vital.
   
   The two unopened boxes of flyers in my flat are testament to this truth. When we looked at buying posters and flyers the quantities all seemed huge, so huge in fact that we asked to reduce our flyer order. In hindsight I would have halved it. People came to see Hell Has No Fury because we spoke to them about it and whilst sure, sometimes that involved passing over a flyer, it didn't always. Less is more, for sure.
   Not to mention the trees guys - think about the trees!
   
2. Small spaces are not to be sniffed at.
   
   Our venue was a 60 seater black box with seats on three sides, pretty standard. Add to that three chairs, three mirrors, a dust sheet and a smattering of LED candles and what do you have? Well a pretty swanky looking set, if I do say so myself. Little venues and small budgets really aren't the hindrance they can appear.
   
3. Outside life happens.
   
   Whether this be a building site with an over-enthusiastic pneumatic drill (oh, I wish I was exaggerating!) or work schedules that relentlessly beat on, the real world continues in August. Something to remember when booking a show for lunchtime when 1.5 members of the company have full time jobs.
   
   
4. Any ticket sales are good ticket sales!
   
   We knew this already but it's worth reiterating, the average Fringe show sells 6 tickets. That's across the hundreds of performances, from one-to-one shows to sold out 500-seat venues, the average is 6. So appreciate every person who comes to see the show, because they came to see yours, not the others.
   
5. Turnaround? Lol. 
   
   Turnaround times are literally non-existent. 5 minutes feels like 5 seconds (and we had a pretty basic set!). It's worth thinking about waaaaay in advance, because the stress of throwing set together in mere minutes, isn't healthy for anyone.
   
6. Make pals with the venue staff and companies.
   
   With these tight turnarounds, the venue staff and other companies are super important. Helping someone else with their get-out will definitely help you with your get-in - simple.
   And friends are great.
   
7. Look after each other.
   
   Buy chocolate (or lacto-free treats for some) and drinks, and check-in with each other.
   
8. ENJOY EVERY SECOND CAUSE SEPTEMBER IS SO DULL. 
   
   
   

Sweeney x

Basically just photos

I wonder what Hell Has No Fury looks like, you ask? 

Well wonder no further because here are our some of our beautiful production photos taken by the lovely Cat Thomson!

I'm not going to lie, this blog is mostly an opportunity to show off Rowan looking fantastically moody in some stellar dusk light. 

And as the Fringe has started today, I'm exhausted in anticipation of what is going to happen in the next four weeks and my brain has already turned to mush. 

With only two and a half weeks before Hell Has No Fury comes to Edinburgh we're in the final stages of prep. Soon our flyers and posters will be in and around Edinburgh. Tweet us if you spot any, cause that'll be a little too cool for me to handle. 

Have a happy Medea to finish off. 

Sweeney x

#WorldFringeDay

Happy World Fringe Day!!

I'm unreasonably happy that there's now a day dedicated to my favourite thing - FRINGE. 

As I (ever so wittily) commented on Twitter this morning - 

'I didn't choose the #fringelife, #fringelife chose me.'

And World Fringe Day has come just as TwentySomething begin rehearsals for Hell Has No Fury at the Edinburgh Fringe. It's kinda crazy to think that we're bringing a show to the original Fringe Festival in it's 70th year, like a lot crazy, like ohmygodwhatarewethinking crazy. 

My first Fringe - yes this is when I get nostalgic - was in 2010. I started what would be a seven year stint working at Assembly Hall every August. I can't believe it's been that long, but I also can't really remember a time when my year didn't revolve around Fringing. I love it so much I now travel to Prague, just to get to do it again. I've met some of my best friends at Fringe, seen the best (and worst) theatre of my life at Fringe, I've laughed so hard I've cried and cried so hard I've laughed at Fringe. To me, it's absolutely astounding that we get to be part of it every single year. 

We did a little Q&A for our Insta last week and I was asked, "What's your favourite thing about #edfringe?" I had to think for a bit, mostly because I wanted to be funny, but also because there are so many answers to that question:

I love the way Edinburgh comes alive during Fringe. I love how many new people get to experience the city. I love the number of new companies who've chosen Edinburgh as the place to share their brand-new work for the first time ever. I love the people who come back year after year, like there's a magnetic pull that stretches across continents and oceans, bringing them back to the Fringe. I love that there are now Fringes all across the world who took inspiration from Edinburgh and decided to dare to be different too. I love walking down the Royal Mile and seeing warring companies vie for flyering privileges. I almost love getting annoyed at tourists in town who don't seem to understand that, 'I'm late for work plz move!' 

I could have said any of those things - instead I went for, "my favourite thing is that you can say you're having an early night when you go home at 4am." Which I promise is more poignant than it sounds! Edinburgh doesn't go to sleep in August, there's always something going on, no matter what time of day or night and it's that buzz, the hum in the background, that I love. 

I feel incredibly lucky that we're getting to bring Hell Has No Fury to a whole new Fringe audience in Edinburgh and I cannot wait. 

A reminder that tickets are on sale on the Fringe website, and that healthy presales allow my blood pressure to remain at a semi-reasonable level. 

(I have used the word Fringe 16 times. Just FYI) 

Sweeney x