Hot on the heels of this week’s Anything Is Possible If You Think About It Hard Enough, Small Things Theatre Company will present its second play premiere at this year’s VAULT Festival, BOOTS, co-written by Jessica Butcher and Sacha Voit. Gen up – and then get booking via the links below!
Boots runs 7-11 March 2018
“That’s when the police decided to show me the CCTV footage. At first, I thought it was just some bloke with a hat pulled down over his face. The problem was when the dancing started.
And not just any dancing.
Tap dancing.”
When it looks like Fred Astaire has burnt down Boots the chemist, Willow (Tanya Loretta Dee) knows that something is seriously afoot. She braves the wilds of Lynx Africa, talking trees, and infertility to find an unlikely friend in Liz (Illona Linthwaite) as she tracks down the truth.
BOOTS is a new play about ending the silence that would keep even Ginger Rogers on her toes. It’s a funny, heartbreaking adventure through forests, friendship and FemFresh that reveals the loneliness of age and the power of Mother Nature. Bring your advantage card.
BOOTS is co-written by Jessica Butcher and Sacha Voit and features an original sound score by Jack Wyllie of Portico Quartet. It’s directed by Lucy Wray. Butcher’s first solo play, Sparks, also premieres at Vault Festival 2018.
May I present the wonderful women working on @BootsThePlay @ButcherJessica #SachaVoit #IllonaLinthwaite @lucywray_ – what a fab team. 🌳💛🌳 SO EXCITED! #womenatvault #whatateam pic.twitter.com/6zDhdAQlNm
— △Tanya Loretta Dee △ (@TanyaLorettaDee) January 28, 2018
Bios
Jessica Butcher (co-writer and co-producer) makes her playwriting debut with Boots. She is an actress best known for her role in solo show Where do Little Birds Go? Edinburgh and VAULT Festival 2015.
Sacha Voit (co-writer) is a writer and theatremaker from Scotland, who trained at the Scottish Youth Theatre and York University before making productions in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and York.
Lucy Wray (director) is one of the Resident Directors at the Almeida 2018. Her directing credits include: Left My Desk by Olivia Hirst (New Diorama); COW by Jessica Barker-Wren (Bike Shed Exeter, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Wilton’s Music Hall, Underbelly Edinburgh); RUN by Stephen Laughton (The Bunker, Nominated for Best Production & Best Actor Off West End Awards); They Built It. No One Came. by Callum Cameron (UK Tour, Pleasance, Edinburgh); EGGS by Florence Keith Roach (VAULT Festival); Goodstock by Olivia Hirst (Greenwich Theatre/New Diorama/Pleasance Edinburgh). As Dramaturg: Give Me Your Skin by Tom Ross Williams and Oonagh Murphy (BAC).
Tanya Loretta Dee
Tanya Loretta-Dee (Willow and co-producer) is an actress who was raised in Birmingham and now lives in London. She is also a writer and spoken word poet. Some of her previous work includes playing Tanya Harvey in Law and Order UK (ITV), The Bill (ITV) and In the Line of Beauty (BBC1), as well as various commercials for ITV and Sky TV. She also played main character Olivia in Meshack Enahoro feature film Vehemence. Tanya appeared in Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish poetry play, Offside, at the Edinburgh Fringe and on tour. She regularly performs poetry and various spoken word events in London, and was nominated for “Best Performance Poet” at Farrago Poetry Zoo awards; the longest running poetry awards ceremony in London.
Illona Linthwaite
Illona Linthwaite (Liz) trained at Rose Bruford and left at a time when repertory theatre was thriving. In the 1980s and 1990s she formed her own company, Mica, to promote women in the theatre as performers, writers, directors and designers. During this time, she also wrote and performed The Spirit of Aphra Behn and commissioned Adrian Mitchell to write Anna on Anna, a play about the Edwardian poet Anna Wickham. With these two solo plays, she travelled to Scotland, Japan, France, India and many places in America. When she is not acting, she directs and teaches at Drama Studio London.
Show trailers
Co-writer Jessica Butcher talks about her inspiration for the show.
Interview
Small Things at VAULT Festival
About Small Things
Small Things Theatre aspires to delight, fascinate and challenge by producing and nurturing new theatre with a strong focus on education. The company collaborates with playwrights, actors, musicians, comedians and poets and, through its regular Night Of Small Things, provides a platform for artists to experiment and showcase their work. The Small Things education department reaches out to and inspires students of all ages. All plays staged carry a strong social message, which is explored further in workshops and post-show discussions.
At the 2018 VAULT Festival, the Small Things season opened in February with Cordelia O’Neill’s Anything Is Possible If You Think About It Hard Enough. It also comprises two major fundraising events in aid of the international #HeForShe campaign for gender equality: a “What Actually Helps?” debate with a star-studded panel of experts including Robert Webb, and the company’s acclaimed variety night, including new contributions on the subject by leading playwrights such as Simon Stephens and Tamsin Oglesby.
