theatre music
- The Cleansing of Constance Brown (2007)
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Commissioned by Wiener Festwochen and Warwick Arts Centre/Fierce!, the show is performed virtually without words. It opened in Warwick in May 2007 before transferring to Vienna, and has since played in Cork, Edinburgh and Birmingham.
The themes are power, the power of people who inhabit the rooms opening off this corridor and cleansing, the cleansing of a woman, Constance Brown, who appears to have lived in all ages, both here and around the globe.
- Be Proud of Me (2004)
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A man has been sent on a mission across Europe by a mysterious organisation.
Something very bad has happened, but a crumbling memory refuses to let him recall things clearly.
The mysterious Mr. Nowicki, a sister he misses, a woman - the chemist - his lover, a hotel he's sure he's already checked into, a plane he's destined never to catch, a briefing room where he's made to rehearse small talk, a doctor who sells a dangerous kind of health insurance, a necklace glinting in the moonlight. Scenes and characters dissolve into each other back and forth through time.
- Comfort Hour (2002)
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The second in the ‘Pieces for the Radio’ series, Comfort Hour was recorded and mixed live late one night in the Stan‘s Cafe studio during rehearsals for Lurid and Insane. It was first broadcast on People‘s Radio Freedom.
The CDs are available for £8.00 each (incl. P.& P.), Cheques payable to Stan‘s Cafe should be sent to; Stan's Cafe, PO Box 10153, Birmingham B12 8XH.
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- Lurid and Insane (2001 - 2002)
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The title is lifted from an obituary in The Independent, long before the show was concieved of. Jean-Bedel Bokassa crowned himself Emperor of the Central African Republic in a ceremony described as "Pure pantomime, lurid and insane". Eventually we returned to the subject of the obituary as a starting point for what, at some point, clearly had to become a musical, kind of.
Set in a political rally it shows how a charismatic, newly elected president is consumed by ego and becomes a deranged dictator. The story develops in the course of a concert. The President's cabinet are a band, he is the lead singer and the audience are members of the ruling party.
- It's Your Film (1998)
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An act of Victorian illusion, a fairground ride, a peep show, a piece of live cinema... it's your film is a three minute long performance staged for an audience of one. Now one of Stan's Cafe's most popular shows, it has now been performed in France, Estonia, Lithuania, Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Brazil, Macedonia, Italy, Spain and the UK.
It looks like a film and yet is perfomed live by two actors. More than its ellusive narrative, the piece is about what an audience contributes in the act of viewing. It is about watching and being watched, acts of illusion, imagination and perspective.
- Ocean of Storms (1996)
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Ocean of Storms is an hour long theatre piece, inspired by the rich metaphoric potential of space travel. It uses a loose narrative of two quasi-angels searching for a small girl lost in a city, to explore a range of ideas about home, proximity and intimacy.
Two female figures on a steel mesh set.
A delicate model of the earth is unpacked from a silver flight case, tea making equipment from another.
The two figures act as satellites, relaying half telephone conversations that mesh, initially sounding like dialogues before drifting apart with comic, sometimes poignant, effect.