Forthcoming Productions
Trunks
The first revival of Stephen Plaice's acclaimed dramatization of the 1934 Trunk Murders in Brighton. An expanded version of the original play that explores the glamorous dance-culture of Thirties Brighton alongside the criminal underworld that flourished in the city during the recession.
The show will be staged in the atmospheric Paganini Ballroom of the Old Ship Hotel.
A Brighton Theatre Collective Production starring Richard Hawley, Gary Sefton and Sian Webber.
Venue: Paganini Ballroom
Old Ship Hotel
Kings Road
Brighton
18-29th August 8pm (doors 7pm)
Matinées: August 23 & 25 (doors 1pm)
Tickets: Dome Box Office 01273 818266
What the critics said about the original production:
'A lively essay in the macabre' Michael Billington The Guardian
'This stylish and smoothly choreographed production combines trash with tango culminating in a truly impressive sawing-in-half.' Paul Taylor The Independent
'Shaker productions assemble a powerful production of Stephen Plaice's study of the desperate fall-out of the Depression era.' Time Out Critic's Choice
'Strongly recommended. See it. If you can get a ticket, that is.' What's On
The Io Passion
The German premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's chamber opera with text by Stephen Plaice.
On the site of the forgotten Mysteries of Lerna, the compulsive relationship between a man and a woman reawakens the buried gods. They have scented a sacrifice. Back in the city, the woman clings to her domestic routine, trying to come to terms with the terrible manifestation she experienced with the man in Greece ...
Berliner Kammeroper
Venue: Werner-Otto-Saal
Konzerthaus
Gendarmenmarkt
Berlin
Première: 7 November 2008
Further performances: 8,14,15,16 November
Tickets:
Tel: +49 (0)30 693 1054
e mail: info@berlinerkammeroper.de
What the critics said about the original production:
' Vivid haunting and complex ... the whole thing is a singular achievement.' Andrew Clements The Guardian
'Intellectually rivetting, musically groundbreaking' Richard Morrison The Times
'Weirdly compelling ... the sense of something dark being stirred into life, of violence tightly contained, was rivetting.' The Independent
Stephen Plaice is a dramatist and script-writer who has written extensively for theatre, opera and television.
He was writer-in-residence at Lewes Prison for a seven year stretch, where he wrote the acclaimed play Trunks about the Brighton Trunk Murders. After leaving the prison residency, he began writing scripts for ITV's The Bill, scripting more than twenty episodes.
In the last decade he has become one of Britain's leading librettists and bookwriters.
He has written three operas for Glyndebourne with composer John Lunn — Misper, Zoë and Tangier Tattoo, and in 2006 scripted the hiphop adaptation of Mozart's Così Fan Tutte for the same house under the title of School4Lovers.
It proved a hit both at home, in Helsinki and at the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn. It is 'one of the slickest and sassiest musicals around' according to Hilary Finch in The Times.
Stephen also wrote the libretto for Sir Harrison Birtwistle's chamber opera The Io Passion which premièred in 2004 : he is currently writing the libretto for Birtwistle's Angelfighter.
His latest opera libretto was Confucius Says for HMDT which premièred at the Hackney Empire in July 2008.
News
*Stephen is currently commissioned to co-write the screenplay of The Laughter Clinic, a film about the reintroduction of censorship into New York. This will be the director Ed Blum's second feature, after Scenes of a Sexual Nature.
* Stephen is writing the libretto for Angelfighter, Harrison Birtwistle's oratorio for the Bach Festival in Leipzig, date to be announced.
*Stephen is also currently working on a travelogue for radio - The Romantic Road - a journey through the cities in which the poets and thinkers of German Romanticism flourished in the nineteenth century.