Theatre company Telltale is to première its latest production, Petrification, at Newcastle’s Live Theatre in May.
Petrification, presented by Telltale in association with LittleMighty, is written by Zoe Cooper, whose first play Nativities also premièred at Live in 2012, and directed by Mark Maughan (National Theatre, Paines Plough).
Simon and Sean’s dad is dead. Returning home from London, Simon is shocked to find Sean in a relationship with a man called Aidan. Sean is irritated by Simon’s new cosmopolitan ways while Aidan just wants to be part of the family. Attempting to find common ground, they head for a night out in Gateshead but before long they’re arguing and darts, pints and fists fly as past and present collide.
Petrification began its life at the Gateshead International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) in May 2013, originally developed as a thirty-minute piece on a shoestring budget. The show was awarded festival prizes from Northern Stage and Live Theatre, which secured time and space to develop the full-length play.
Over the summer of 2013, the company successfully applied for an ACE Grants for the Arts award. This enabled them to expand the creative team and produce a full-length draft of the script. It was later shortlisted for the Kevin Spacey Foundation Award, making the final round of six from over 1000 applications.
“This is a play for anyone who’s ever left home and come back to find everything changed,” said Maughan, “and also for anyone who never went away in the first place. We hope the show is immersive, incisive and intoxicating.”
“The play was partly inspired by my family’s annual holiday growing up,” Cooper added. “Each year, my family returned to the same beach, giving me a host of memories, through toddler tantrums to teenage friendships formed in a day and then forgotten. When I compare my memories to those of my sister’s I was really aware that there are loads of gaps and differences in what we recall.
"I have also wanted to write something about the north/south divide for a while, as well as the ways class can split a family—especially when everyone is forced to spend too much time together!”
Petrification runs at Live from 26 to 28 May before touring to:
- 2 June: The Victorian Craft Beer Café (in association with Halifax Square Chapel Centre for the Arts’ Plays in Pubs)
- 3 June: Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
- 15 June: Customs House, South Shields
- 16 June: CAST, Doncaster
- 18 June: The Lowry, Salford Quays
- 20 – 22 June: Pub gigs with 2’s Company Festival in association with Harrogate Theatre
- 20 June: The Mitre Inn, Knaresborough
- 21 June: So Bar, Ripon
- 22 June: Tap and Spile, Harrogate
- 26 June: The HUB, Leeds
Casting will be announced later.