Search results for ""Author Chinonyerem Odimba""

Meet Aurora and Orion: Sister and Brother. Constellations in time. More than blood. More than just fam. They look after each other in their small London flat, filled with the memories of their parents' Black Love. When that love is threatened, they must confront their own worst fears as they find their way back to each other and to what it means to love whilst Black. Black Love by Chinonyerem Odimba, with music by Ben and Max Ringham, is an explosion of form-busting storytelling, combining real-life stories, imagined worlds, and new songs inspired by an R&B heritage. It was premiered in July 2021 in Paines Plough's the Roundabout as a co-production between Paines Plough and Belgrade Theatre in association with tiata fahodzi, co-directed by Odimba and Katie Posner, as part of Coventry City of Culture 2021, before touring the UK. Black Love won Best Musical Theatre Bookwriting at the 2022 Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards.

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‘I have to draw a new map. I have to be seen. For her. For all of us!’ Since her ordeal five years ago, nineteen-year-old Nene rarely leaves home. Secure within her mum's embrace, Nene now keeps the outside world securely on the other side of her bedroom window. But weekly visits from her best friend start to fill the void and on one unexpected day, when Nene is finally beyond the walls of her sanctuary, a long-forgotten spark is powerfully reignited in her, one which will change her direction forever… A poignant and life-affirming play, Chinonyerem Odimba's Unknown Rivers is a testament to the extraordinary powers of female friendship – where there's turmoil, trauma and hardship, there's also love, bravery and hope, making it possible to go with the flow… and live. Unknown Rivers premiered at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London, in October 2019.

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‘My name is Phyllis Princess James. I will wear this crown every day. I will never take it off even when I am asleep.’ Meet Princess. A cheeky ten-year-old, with a plan to win the Weston-super-Mare Beauty Contest. Trouble is, her mum is busy working several jobs, her brother, a budding photographer, won't even take her picture and then – The Hustler returns. In 1963 Bristol, as Black British Civil Rights campaigners walk onto the streets, Princess finds out what it really means to be black and beautiful. Chinonyerem Odimba's play Princess & The Hustler was first seen at the Bristol Old Vic in February 2019, followed by a UK tour, in a co-production between Eclipse Theatre Company, Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre, directed by Dawn Walton. The play was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Best New Play Award 2018.

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Two explosive plays about the need to be seen. Somalia Seaton's House is a play about family, culture clash, memory and truth. When Pat returns to her childhood home after a five-year absence, she's ready to forgive her mother for the neglect she suffered at her hands, but Mama isn't ready to let the demons back into her home. In Chino Odimba's Amongst the Reeds, two friends scratch out a living on the margins of society. Oni and Gillian have made their home in a disused office block, finding ever more precarious ways to stay hidden from the authorities. But now Gillian is heavily pregnant, and visibility might be the only way to give her baby a chance. Commissioned by Clean Break and produced in association with the Yard Theatre, London, House + Amongst the Reeds premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, before transferring to The Yard. Acclaimed theatre company Clean Break produces ground-breaking plays with women writers and actors at the heart of its work. Founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who needed urgently to tell their stories through theatre, the company today has an independent education programme delivering theatre opportunities to women offenders and women at risk, in custodial and community settings.

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