Tag: Grid Iron Theatre Company

Full tour announced for June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me

World Premiere 

National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron Theatre Company present 

June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me 

Written and performed by Charlene Boyd, directed by Cora Bissett  

Music performed by Harry Ward, Ray Aggs and Amy Duncan 

Set and Costume Design – Shona Reppe, 

MD, Composer and Sound Designer – Pippa Murphy

Lighting Designer – Elle Taylor

Movement Director – Laura Fisher. 

Premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Dissection Room, Summerhall from 6 to 24 August with preview performances from 2 to 4 August 2024 

Touring across Scotland from 28 August to 22 September 2024: 

Opening night and press performance at the Dissection Room, Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Tuesday 6 August at 4:00pm 

Barn, Banchory; Òran Mór, Glasgow; British Legion, Dunfermline – Outwith Festival; Cochran Hall, Kirkcudbright – Kirkcudbright Fringe; Millenium Centre, Stranraer in association with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival; Brodick Hall, Arran in association with Arran Theatre and Arts Trust; The Rockfield Centre, Oban; Ullapool Village Hall in association with the Ceilidh Place, and Forres Town Hall, Forres – Findhorn Bay Festival. 

Part of the 2024 Made in Scotland Showcase 

Charlene Boyd, one of Scotland’s leading actors shares the story of one of country music’s most iconic voices: June Carter Cash.

Directed by the multi-award-winning Cora Bissett, June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me opens at the Dissection Room Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ahead of a tour of Scottish cultural venues and festivals in August and September 2024. 

June Carter Cash was a country singer, songwriter and dancer. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica and autoharp, winning five Grammy awards across her career. She came from a family of country singers and was the second wife of Johnny Cash. Their relationship was celebrated in the Oscar-winning 2005 film, Walk the Line. A new documentary about “June”, received its TV premiere on Paramount+ in 2024. This is the first stage play to premiere about June’s life and music in the UK. 

More than a simple biography of June’s life and music, this play with songs, sees Charlene explore her own relationship with her musical heroine and their shared experience as performers and working mothers. A powerful, personal journey of discovery stretching across the Atlantic, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Glasgow high-rise flats, their tale is one of empowerment, endurance and perseverance.  

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Charlene Boyd travelled to Nashville and across the Appalachian Mountains to research this play. She visited places that held special significance in June’s life and interviewed friends and family of June Carter Cash, alongside contemporary American country singer-songwriters. 

The show will feature live music and will be staged in a cabaret style setting, inspired by Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café. Charlene Boyd gets to grips with a life less ordinary in this raw yet uplifting piece of intimate gig theatre. 

Charlene Boyd, writer and performer said: “I’ve sang in a band as June Carter Cash for over a decade but knew nothing about her really. I thought she was the pretty backing singer who sang along with Johnny Cash, then married him.

“It wasn’t until I started to dig that I realised how incredible June was in her own right, as an artist, woman and mother. I am proud that my first play shines a light on working class women artists and their struggle to be given their rightful place.” 

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Charlene Boyd is a Scottish actor and writer, born and raised in Glasgow. June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me marks her debut as a playwright.

As an actor she most recently undertook the UK tour of 2:22 A Ghost Story and appeared in The Macbeths at the Citizens Theatre, for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the CATS Awards in 2019.

Charlene has previously worked with National Theatre of Scotland on the productions Men Should Weep, Empty and The Miracle Man.

Her television work includes Mayflies, The Trial of Christine Keeler, Crime S2, River City and Scots Squad. She also performs, as June, with Jericho Hill, in a Johnny Cash tribute band. 

Cora Bissett is a Scottish theatre director, playwright, actor and songwriter. Previous work with National Theatre of Scotland includes the hit political musical Glasgow Girls, Rites, Adam, Interference and Orphans.

Other theatre work includes Emma Donohue’s Room, which toured to London, across Scotland, Dublin and Toronto, the hit rock-music production Janis Joplin: Full Tilt and autobiographical gig theatre production What Girls Are Made Of, which won a Fringe First and Herald Angel award.

From 2014 until 2022, Bissett was an Associate Director with the National Theatre of Scotland. 

Founded in 1995, Grid Iron is a multi-award-winning Edinburgh-based new writing theatre company who specialise in site-specific and location theatre, although they have also created work for conventional stages.Grid Iron have previously collaborated with National Theatre of Scotland on Roam, a site-responsive production staged in Edinburgh Airport.   

Grid Iron have worked previously with Charlene Boyd on Barflies, Letters Home and The Devil’s Larder and with Cora Bissett on Clearance, The Bloody Chamber, Fierce and Yarn. 

The Cash family has connections to Scotland. Johnny Cash claimed his ancestors were from the Kingdom of Fife and was very proud of his Scottish ancestry. Cash visited Fife on more than one occasion, recording a television special there, Christmas in Scotland, in 1981. June’s daughter Carlene Carter made a special appearance at Celtic Connections in February 2024. 

Both National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron have a longstanding relationship with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. National Theatre of Scotland has presented 18 shows at the Fringe since 2006, with previous shows including Black Watch, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour and Adam. 

Grid Iron have appeared at the Festival Fringe 15 times since 1997 with offerings such as Decky Does a Bronco, Doppler, Barflies and The Devil’s Larder. 

In 2024, National Theatre of Scotland is producing a programme of three shows at the Edinburgh Festivals. Alongside June Carter Cash, The Woman, Her Music and Me, Gary McNair’s Dear Billy is showing at the Assembly Rooms and David Ireland’s The Fifth Step premieres at the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. 

Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue and dates: Dissection Room, Summerhall from 02 to 24 August, 4:00pm 

Previews: Friday 2 August to Sunday 4 August, 4:00pm 

Press performance: Tuesday 6 August at 4:00pm 

Performance time: Doors and bar open at 4:00pm, performance begins at 4:20pm 

Touring Scotland from Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 22 September 2024: 

  • Barn, Banchory (Wed 28 Aug) 
  • Òran Mór, Glasgow (Fri 30 Aug – Sun 1 Sep) 
  • British Legion, Dunfermline – Outwith Festival (Tue 3 Sep) 
  • Cochran Hall, Kirkcudbright – Kirkcudbright Fringe (Thu 5 Sep) 
  • Millenium Centre, Stranraer in association with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival (Sat 7 Sep) 
  • Brodick Hall, Arran in association with Arran Theatre and Arts Trust (Wed 11 Sep) 
  • The Rockfield Centre, Oban (Fri 13 & Sat 14 Sep) 
  • Ullapool Village Hall in association with the Ceilidh Place (Tue 17 & Wed 18 Sep) 
  • Forres Town Hall, Forres – Findhorn Bay Festival (Sat 21 & Sun 22 Sep) 

Running Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes (approx.) 

Full tour and creative information here.  

The National Theatre of Scotland’s popular Theatre for a Fiver scheme will be available for 14 to 16 year-olds and those on Universal Credit. 

Access – full information coming soon. 

On social: #JuneandCharlene #JuneCarterCash 

Tickets on sale for the long-awaited staging of Doppler at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The award-winning Grid Iron Theatre Company is pleased to announce further details for its hugely anticipated outdoor, site-specific staging of Doppler, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Norwegian author Erlend Loe.

The world premiere will take place in the woods of Newhailes House on the outskirts of Musselburgh between 8th and 23rd of August (no shows on 10th, 17th and 19th) with previews on 6th and 7th.

Tickets go on sale today at 12 noon on edfringe.com.

The show will be staged in front of a small number of people to allow for social distancing and therefore audiences are encouraged to book early to avoid disappointment. Tickets for Doppler will be released in batches to coincide with the changes in Covid-19-related restrictions with further ticket release announcements taking place on Grid Iron’s social media.

I am a man of my time. A failed man of my time. Or just a man of a failed time. Depending on how you look at it. 

Doppler had everything. He thought. Wife, two kids, 23 hour working week, time to ride his bicycle. Until the accident. Now he lives in the forest with an elk… Doppler is a funny and subversive fable about existence, consumerism and trying to live life in isolation when nobody will leave you alone.

Adapted and directed by Ben Harrison from the translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, with dramaturgy by Eszter Marsalko, Doppler is produced by Judith Doherty with a cast that includes Keith Fleming, known for his role of Lesley in Outlander, in the eponymous role with Grid Iron-regular Sean Hay and Chloe-Ann Tylor known to wider audiences from Citizen Theatre’s Trainspotting portraying all the remaining characters.

The Company is also working with several talented freelancers, including Fergus Dunnet who is producing the puppets for the show, Nik Paget-Tomlinson on music and foley, David Pollock on music and Becky Minto who is responsible for design.

Judith Doherty, Grid Iron’s Chief Executive and Co-Artistic Director said: “Doppler is back and this time he is LIVE! We are beyond excited to finally be able to confirm the details for the world premiere of Doppler. It has truly been a roller-coaster of a ride and we are so delighted to now be on terra firma and able to welcome our audience in person.

“We also want to say a massive thank you National Trust for Scotland for hosting Doppler and to all the wonderful staff and volunteers at Newhailes House and Gardens. We look forward to welcoming our audiences to the beautiful, shady woodland of Newhailes on the 6th August!”

Doppler was originally planned to be performed at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2020 but had to pivot to a digital sharing in light of the Covid-19 related restrictions.

With only a few days of outdoor filming achieved due to Storm Francis, the Company decided to instead produce a documentary film charting the story of the show and its production, Doppler – The Story so Far, which was released for free in March 2020 and watched by almost 10,000 people worldwide. You can watch the documentary on the Company’s website.

Grid Iron, one of Creative Scotland’s Regularly Funded Organisations, is grateful to be one of a group of 15 shows and five venues awarded first ever Fringe Artist and Venue Recovery Fund.

This generous support goes toward presenting a BSL-interpreted sharing of Doppler which will take place on Saturday, 14th August at 2pm and on Saturday, 21st August at 6pm.

Tickets starting from £8 are on sale at 12pm on Thursday, 22 July via edfringe.com.

Dates, times, prices:

•             Aug 6-7 14:00 – £8.00

•             Aug 8-9,11-16,18,20-23 14:00 – £15.00 (£8.00 concession)

•             Aug 14-15,18,20-22 18:00 – £15.00 (£8.00 concession)

Running time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Age recommendation: 14+

#DopplerShow

Facebook and Twitter: @GridIronTheatre

Grid Iron Theatre Company

Grid Iron are an Edinburgh-based theatre company who, following their incorporation in 1995 and their first show Clearance at the Traverse, Edinburgh, swiftly gained a reputation for creating high-quality, high profile shows.

The Company went on to specialise in presenting shows in unusual locations. They are a new writing company who work in challenging sites that lend themselves especially well to Grid Iron’s taut production style. Occasionally they create work for the stage or use theatre buildings in a site-specific, promenade manner.

In 1997 Grid Iron produced their first full-scale site-specific production, The Bloody Chamber, their adaptation of Angela Carter’s Bluebeard fairytale, which they presented in famously haunted underground vaults beneath Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile.

It was the company’s first appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and, by the opening night, the show had sold out for its entire three-week run. Awards: Herald Angel for Outstanding Contribution and Achievement in Theatre and Total Theatre Nominations for Best Newcomers and Best Design.

www.gridiron.org.uk

‘Very cautiously excited’: live theatre this month?

Experts in site specific and promenade theatre, Edinburgh-based Grid Iron Theatre Company hopes to bring a world premiere of Doppler to audiences later this month.

With very limited audience numbers of up to 20 people, this outdoor, socially distant show would have a limited run starting on or after 24 August with venue and exact dates still to be confirmed.

Judith Doherty, Chief Executive and Co-Artistic Director of Grid Iron Theatre Company said: “We are very cautiously excited about the possibility of bringing Doppler to Edinburgh audiences this August.

“We have been developing the show for over a year now and had hoped to bring it to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Doppler was always meant to be an outdoor show and with our experience of producing shows in unusual spaces, we remain hopeful that we will be able to proceed with our plans. We are currently awaiting confirmation of our venue and then we can proceed with securing the required licensing.

“Having said that, we acknowledge the situation is developing fast and we might need to adapt quickly. We understand that 24 August, the date announced by the Scottish Government today as potentially the first day of live outdoor performances being allowed back in Scotland, is an indicative date which will be reviewed in 3 weeks.

“Safety and comfort of our audiences and team are always our top priority and we are simultaneously working on plans for a non-live sharing of Doppler.”

Adapted and directed by Ben Harrison, produced by Judith Doherty, with dramaturgy by Eszter Marsalko and translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, Doppler is an adaptation of a satirical novel by a Norwegian writer Erlend Loe.

It focuses on Doppler, a man who, following the death of his father, decides to abandon his family and move to the forest on the outskirts of Oslo. He is determined to live a life as far removed from his previous as possible but struggles to maintain his isolation as his existence garners a lot of unwanted attention.

Ben Harrison, Adaptor, Director and Co-Artistic Director of Grid Iron said: “Doppler has been planned for a couple of years but takes on new and unexpected resonances in the context of the pandemic. The central character is jolted out of his comfortable Norwegian existence by a bicycle accident and determines to live an isolated life in the forest away from his family and social circle.

“Determined to live a deliberately simple existence, a life fused with the rhythm of the forest, he slows everything right down. Through his comical one-sided dialogue with an orphaned elk calf that he adopts, muses on life, the excesses of capitalism, fathers and sons and the footprint we leave on the world.

“As the months move slowly by however, his alternative lifestyle of bartering and hunter-gathering attracts some unwanted attention, and he finds being alone not nearly as simple and straightforward as he had hoped.”

Known for the role of Lesley in Outlander, Keith Fleming is Doppler with Grid Iron-regulars Itxaso Moreno and Sean Hay portraying all the remaining characters. The Company is also working with several talented freelancers, including Fergus Dunnet who is producing the puppets for the show, David Pollock on music and foley and Becky Minto who is responsible for design.

Following weeks of Zoom meetings, the Company has now begun outdoor rehearsals strictly following all the safety measures. These include not only face masks, hand sanitizing and social distancing but also taking people’s temperature at home and then again in the outdoor rehearsal space, props being handled by only one person, introduction of a clean objects area after they are sanitized and shorter rehearsal days to avoid having to take meal breaks.

The Company is also making it possible for people not to have to travel to work by public transport unless they are absolutely comfortable to do so and if yes, only outwith peak times.

The very strict health and safety regulations also impact on the design of the show with rigging and lighting designed to be handled by only one person at all times and actors wearing their own clothes and bringing some of the props from home.

Grid Iron Theatre Company has decades of experience of producing theatre in non-theatre, often outdoor spaces and is widely recognised as experts in audience management.

Its past productions include Roam presented at the Edinburgh Airport, Decky Does Bronco in parks and play areas across the UK and Ireland, Dr Stirlingshire’s Discovery at the Edinburgh Zoo and Crude, produced at a huge former oil-rig manufacturing shed in the Port of Dundee.

The Company is closely following the Scottish Government’s guidelines and is in touch with local authorities, and remains hopeful the staging of Doppler late in August will be possible. It recognises however that the current landscape is uncertain and everchanging and as such, is preparing for the eventuality that the live outdoor show will not be able to proceed.

If that happens, Doppler will be shared with audiences digitally as a filmed performance.