Inkerman Writers
a showcase of our work
Inkermans take to the stage
The Darlington Green Theatre company has teamed up with three local writers to produce a night of specially-created one-act plays. The authors, all members of Darlington-based Inkerman Writers, had their plays selected for performance at Darlington Arts Centre as part of Darlington for Culture’s Winter programme. The performances will be on Monday and Tuesday, February 27th & 28th at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £5.00 and £4.00 for concessions and can be obtained by calling 01325 486555 or calling in at the Arts Centre or Civic Theatre ticket outlets.
Produced under the title Branching Out, the one-act plays are:
The Scottish Play by Bud Craig
What would happen if William Shakespeare travelled through time and found himself as a jobbing writer here and now? This comedy explores that idea and reveals some secrets into the bargain.
Time Again by Pat Stewart
A mysterious and thought provoking play based around a well known local story.
Sweet FA By Sandra Spears
Dallas meets Darlington in this thrilling who-done-it. Power struggles in the tanning salon empire of the town and all the characters you would normally expect to meet in Southfork!
Alice Potter, from the Theatre Group, said: “We have been performing Shakespeare in South Park, Darlington, for five years now but have been lucky to be given rehearsal space at the Arts Centre. Last year we performed The Merry Wives of Windsor in and around the Arts Centre itself and were really disappointed to hear of its proposed closure in 2012, so we joined up with Darlington for Culture.
“As well as working hard to try and find an alternative to closing the Arts Centre Darlington for Culture has brought together lots of different local arts groups and through this we met members of Inkerman Writers and put our idea to them of writing new local one act plays for us to perform. We are very grateful to all the writers who submitted plays and it was a hard choice to decide which ones to go with. The three we have chosen provide a good cross section of drama and comedy and it’s a change to be working with modern scripts.”
Bud Craig, who has been shortlisted or better in about a dozen writing competitions spanning novels, short stories and plays, said the idea for the play came from hearing someone say Shakespeare was just a jobbing playwright. He said: “It will be great to hear actors speaking lines I have written. I hope the audience enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I especially want to thank the Inkerman Writers for encouraging my writing and Green Theatre for putting on my play.”
With the encouragement of the Inkerman Writers, Pat Stewart began to write following her retirement in 2009. She is at present in her first year of an MA in Creative Writing at Teesside University. She said: “As a relatively new writer, I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to have my first play performed by Green Theatre.”
Sandra Spears, author of Sweet FA has written creatively for the past seven years and has been a member of Inkerman Writers for two. In 2008 she won the Arthritis Care Short Story Competition and has poems published in anthologies. She said: “To see one of my plays in performance will be a huge thrill for me. I would like to thank Inkerman Writers for their continuing support and Green Theatre for staging my play.”
The events form part of Darlington for Culture’s Winter programme at the centre, more information about which is available at www.darlingtonforculture.org
More details on Green Theatre can be obtained from Alice & Jo Potter on 01325 483277
or at jolyon@tradefair.co.uk
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About
DfC
The Inkerman Writers are members of Darlington for Culture (DfC), which was set up in 2010 to help save Darlington Arts Centre from closure.
Its members include representatives of arts and community groups.
DfC was established after the centre’s owner, Darlington Borough Council, announced that budget cuts meant that it would have to withdraw its subsidy from the Arts Centre.
Although the centre closed, the organisation remains active - more at www.darlingtonforculture.org
Publications
Welcome to the site created by the Inkerman Writers to showcase our work.
Based in Darlington, North East England, and having celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2013, members have enjoyed success in a variety of arenas, including winning, and being shortlisted and highly commended, in short story competitions, having novels published and publishing the short story anthology A Strawberry in Winter, which can be obtained by visiting the website www.blurb.com
The group's second anthology of short stories, Christophe's Farewell and Other Stories, can be obtained, cost £4.95 plus postage and packing, from
The Inkerman Writers’ latest book, Out of the Shadows, which was launched as part of the 2013 Darlington Arts Festival, is on sale. The book can be ordered direct from
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4204019-out-of-the-shadows
The group also produced The Last Waltz, a double CD of short stories, available by contacting deangriss@btinternet.com, cost £5 plus p and p.
Several of our writers wrote original one-act plays in a collaboration with the Green Theatre company, which were performed at Darlington Arts Centre early in February, 2012.
Darlington-based Inkerman Writers have produced their latest anthology of short stories, Inkerman Street, based on the demolition of a fictional northern street and the stories of the people who lived in it.
The book, which features a variety of stories ranging from horror to comedy, was launched to a large audience at the Darlington Arts Festival Literary Day on Saturday May 26 and begins like this:
“Inkerman Street is still and graveyard-hushed tonight, the terraced houses cold behind boarded-up windows, silent sentinels among a sea of wasteland. No one lives here now and tomorrow the bulldozers will move in to flatten the houses to make way for the Council’s Grand Plan.
“Although the people are long gone, the houses still have life. Peek into one of the bedrooms and see on the wall a painting of a seaside scene, brightly-coloured boats bobbing in the harbour, fishermen pipe-smoking in the noonday sun and seagulls wheeling high above the choppy waters. In the roaring silence of the night, you can hear the screeching of the birds and taste the salt air, acrid and herring-sharp at the back of your throat. It is an illusion; the bedroom is empty and the blooms on the faded wallpaper have long since wilted.
“The air in the houses is musty with neglect yet but a few months before, these were bustling homes filled with frying bacon and steaming irons, whistling kettles and playing children. The houses witnessed all these scenes for more than 150 years. Behind their curtains were enacted a thousand stories but tomorrow they will be destroyed because Inkerman Street is the last of its ilk.
“Now, on the eve of the street’s death, the people who once lived here have returned, gathering solemn and silent in the mist, the ghosts of the past come to pay final tribute….”
The anthology can be purchased at http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/7524452/bae89c993c98ec8c8b37b12d6b9b37ecced5dec3
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