SPAIN BY JAMES LEY Co-created and performed by Mark Kydd CITIZENS’ THEATRE, GLASGOW 25 Oct - 12 November 2011 PRODUCTION TEAM Directed by……………………Rosalind Sydney Video Design by…………….Jonathan Ley Production Manager, Stage Manager and Lighting Designer……Neil B. Anderson Design by……………………….Kate Temple Sound by……………………….Danny Krass Accent Coach…………………Linda Cuthbert Movement Consultant……Jen Edgar Production Assistant………Katie McNutt You can’t run away from your problems …. but you can take them to nicer places. In the author’s words … After taking my first one man show Up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009 I really wanted to write another solo performance play but it wasn’t until last year when Steven Thomson started putting feelers out for new pieces for Glasgay! 2011 that I started to think about a new project. At this point Mark Kydd and I came together and decided to work on Spain, with Mark as co-creator. We decided to create the characters and much of the story together before I began work on the script and spent a few days in development, sharing stories and photographs in my living room and mapping out the plot for the play on the back of a roll of wallpaper. This became the blueprint for the script. Many of the stories we have used and the characters in the Spain are real and have been drawn from our own experiences. James Ley produced his play Up at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009, directed by Rosalind Sydney, for which Laurie Brown was nominated for a Best Solo Performance Award from The Stage. Up was revived for Glasgay! 2010. This year James has written for A Play, A Pie and A Pint, (I Heart Maths directed by Ros Philips) and INK 24 Hour Plays at the Tron Theatre. Spain is the third and final of James’ plays that form The Ego Plays, a collection of plays that deal with the male psyche that have been published by Oberon Books to coincide with this production. James was awarded an Arts Council literature residency at Cove Park in 2010, was mentored by Nicola McCartney through the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland in the same year and has recently been
awarded a small grant from the Tom McGrath Trust. James went to Gran Canaria with his boyfriend, Mark, last year and the highlight of his holiday was finding a small bar on top of a run-down shopping centre, which served incredible Sangria (the secret ingredient of which is banana liqueur apparently). Since graduating from QMU, Mark Kydd has played everything from a prince to a dog, performing in Scotland at a variety of theatres including Perth Rep, Platform and The Arches. He has worked internationally in Hong Kong and Singapore. Mark’s directing credits include Spring Awakening for Dundee College and Bad Girls The Musical for Stanwix Arts Centre. Recent acting credits include Red Harlaw (Honest Toil), Burke (Siege Perilous) and Desire (2Landa). He appeared in The Bridge for Glasgay! 2010 and this is his third Glasgay! appearance. Little did he know that his 1990 holiday in Tenerife would come back to haunt him... Rosalind Sydney is an actress and theatre practitioner based in Glasgow. In the last twelve months she has performed in My Romantic History for the Bush/Sheffield Crucible; taken part in script development for NTS and rehearsed readings at the Royal Court; travelled to Italy to perform in Vanishing Point's Interiors; and in Scotland has performed in Caged with Catherine Wheels as well as the award winning One Thousand Paper Cranes for Lu Kemp/Abigail Docherty at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She directed James's play Up for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009 and then at the CCA for Glasgay! 2010. Ros's first trip to Spain was to Ibiza, and she describes it as a bit of a blur... but since then she's been lucky enough to travel with a show to Madrid... to the real Spain...to eat the fantastic food, soak up the sun and admire the beautiful Spanish faces. Ole! Jonathan Ley is an award-winning filmmaker, visual content producer and freelance editor. He was the winner of the 48-Hour Film Project, placed 3rd in the International Shootout and was nominated for the DepicT and Jim Poole awards. His short films have screened at festivals around the world. Jonathan’s company, Useful Content (www.usefulcontent.co.uk), specialises in online promotional video for creative businesses and arts practitioners. His growing client list includes arts venues, bands and theatre companies. Spain is Jonathan's first commission for in-show
visuals. (He has fond memories of the ciderias in Asturias.) This is Neil Anderson’s 5th Anniversary with Glasgay! Festival and he's absolutely delighted to be back. Neil’s favourite memory of Spain is a stroll along the Costa del Sol at midnight, where - suitably bolstered by a litre of fine Spanish red - he declared himself to be following in the footsteps of Alexander The Great as he waded into the magnificent Mediterranean Sea. Kate Temple is an artist and designer based in Edinburgh. For theatre she has designed works for the Arches, the Traverse and Camden People’s Theatre and she will be designing two works next year for the Royal Scottish Conservatoire. Kate has only been to Spain once - to Barcelona while interrailing with her friend Lucy in 1999. Two of her favourite films - All About My Mother and The Passenger – are filmed in the city. THANKS Special thanks to dressmaker and costume designer Bill Scott. Thank you to everyone who kindly let us capture their images of film and to the venue staff at The Street, Joseph Pearce, The Regent and CC Blooms. Thanks also to Lucas, David, Craig, Steve, Rit, Allister, Len, Julio, David. Christos, Ricardo, Alan, Keith, Ken, Colin, Colin, Eddie, Stewart, Andrzey, Rhona, Neil, Craig, James, John, John, Matt, Matthew, Richard and Nero. Thanks to David Kydd, Paul Kydd, Dermot McLaughlin, Jeff Zimmer, Victor Jimenez, David Leddy, Alice Chinn, Emma McKee and The Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland, The Tom McGrath Trust, everyone at Oberon Books, Jackie Ley, Mark Crossan, everyone at The Arches, everyone at Tron Theatre, everyone at the Citizens Theatre and Fran Craig, Emily and Graham. Produced by Glasgay! t/a GALA Scotland Ltd 27-29 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5EZ Tel 0141 552 7575 Email/Web info@glasgay.com | ww.glasgay.com A Ltd Co. Reg. SC 157153 Charity SCO 23620 | VAT Reg 797 3863 59