The project
The Avignon Off festival is renowned as one of the biggest and most exciting theatre festivals in the world.
Every year more than a thousand shows delight audiences. The festival public includes around 4 000 professionals reviewing and selecting shows to play across France and the world, making the festival a veritable launching pad for companies and productions. 2015 will be the 50th festival Off and promises to be bigger than ever.
Surprisingly, despite the international nature of the audience and an increasing appetite for works from different cultures and languages, until now, the festival has included very few English language productions.
We (Dear Conjunction) brought our play about the life of Oscar Wilde, More Lives than One: Oscar Wilde and the Black Douglas to the festival in 2014 and played to packed houses. Such was the success, that we have been selected by the Chapeau Rouge Theatre to work in partnership with them to bring back not only the Oscar Wilde play , but also our latest production Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
We will be playing from July 4 to July 12 2015
We are thrilled to be part of the festival again this year, but need your help to ensure the project is a success..
Our two productions:
Under Milk Wood (at 12h00 from 4 to 12 July 2015)
To mark the hundredth birthday of the celebrated Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, Dear Conjunction Theatre Company created this mise en scène of his 'play for voices', Under Milk Wood. Come with us, for a day in the life of the little village of Llareggub in the company of its inhabitants: cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives.”
Dylan Thomas claimed this play was a response to the bombing of Hiroshima ; a way to reaffirm the beauty of the world. Under Milk Wood is indeed a celebration of beauty, and also of community, of love, of language (and love of language) - and, above all, of life.
More Lives Than One- Oscar Wilde & the Black Douglas (at 19h15 from 4 to 12 July 2015)
Oscar Wilde’s outrageous wit and his self-destruction fuel Leslie Clack’s high octane tour de force. This 1 hour 10 minute show, directed by Patricia Kessler, and performed by its creator, is a Wildean cocktail of storytelling, scenes from Wilde’s plays and extracts from the infamous trial that so shocked strait-laced Victorian society.
Cleverly incorporating biography and extracts from the works - both the hilarious and the moving - Leslie Clack explores the ambition, genius and tragedy that was Oscar.
Why fund it?
Your donations can help contribute to the success of our Avignon run and ensure we can continue bringing you high quality English language productions year round.
Like most small theatre companies, we manage our budgets tightly and as prudently as we can, but creating productions of consistently high quality has a cost. As a company we have invested heavily to ‘make it’ to Avignon, with all the associated costs. As such, we have had significantly to deplete the reserves of our organisation. While we have covered the ‘basics’, certain costs run beyond our budget – with the risk that we will have to cover any shortfalls from our personal accounts and more importantly that will affect our ability to bring you future work.
By donating to our project you can help:
· Pay a part of our accommodation costs – even though we will be staying in a camp site caravan (we really aren’t extravagant!) the costs for the cast and crew run to 1900 euros
· Our 2nd class travel from Paris to Avignon which will cost 600€ for our team of 5
· Help reinforce our professional communication, with a personalised communication programme to key professionals costing 300 euros
· Pay a part of the costs of communication to the public with additional posters and flyers etc. (300€)
· Pay for the performing rights/royalties for Under Milk Wood (estimated at 400 euros)
· And finally, to help pay for an essential and surprisingly expensive prop for the Oscar Wilde play – green carnations and white lilies, which are hard to find and need to be renewed frequently throughout our run (budget of 180€)
‘In an elegant pudgy hand, there would often be a lily, or perhaps a sunflower’
‘The green carnation, which Oscar Wilde had invented as a button hole, came to stand for a brief and brilliant season or two as a symbol of the age’
(From More lives than One- Oscar Wilde & the Black Douglas)
Please note, both Dear Conjunction and our partner the Chapeau Rouge Theatre are run by registered non-profit associations, the laws of which strictly govern the way our income can be used.
If we surpass the amount collected it will be invested into the creation and promotion of our new programmes – the 2016 Printemps Anglophone at the theatre du Chapeau Rouge and the Dear Conjunction production of The Line, by Timberlake Wertenbaker, about the relationship between Edgar Degas and Suzanne Valadadon - in other words to bring you more great theatre in the English language
Why you might want to consider donating:
- Because you have seen a Dear Conjunction play in the past and want to help us continue to bring you high quality productions,
-Because you are passionate about the great works of the English language and want to help our mission to help them be discovered across France (and beyond!),
- You want to help our partner the Chapeau Rouge continue to promote and bring English language works to Avignon.
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