Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell

Give Me the Sun is a new play by Mamet Leigh which will have its first production at Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell, with support from an Arts Council England project grant.

Short description of play: Bashir and Baba live in a council house in London. Baba, once a doctor in Egypt, works in Tesco. Bashir plays basketball with his friends and wonders what his home country was like. When he turns eighteen, his father encourages him to ask him anything, not expecting that the question will be ‘why did we come to the UK?’.

Give Me the Sun is a compelling short play, exploring what happens when too much is left unsaid for too long. A seemingly perfect father-son relationship unravels to reveal grief, loss and loneliness. As a play, it addresses the complexity of finding your place in a new country and how different that can be for each person.

Writer Mamet Leigh was a pioneer of the Tehran Underground Theatre Movement before coming to London in 2013. The script runs at 50 minutes – one hour.

Details

Total Fee: £3,093 (preparatory fee of £1,117.00, 3 weeks rehearsal @ £494/week & production week @ £494)

Timing: Performance dates will ideally be in April, May or June 2022. The exact dates will be agreed between the availability of the director, designer and theatre space. The director will need four weeks of continuous availability for rehearsals and production week.

Please note: we are ideally seeking a director of Middle Eastern or Northern African background.

Next steps: if you are interested in applying to direct this production, please contact Niamh at niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk to request a copy of the script by February 10th.