Research & Development

On Tuesday 19 October 2010 Monkeywood produced a Script in Hand performance of Once in a House on Fire at The Lowry for an invited audience, as a culmination of a two month-long research and development period. Monkeywood and their associate writer Sarah McDonald Hughes have worked collaboratively with actors, a director, a video artists and young people from Xaverian Sixth Form College in Rusholme and Chorlton High School (which both feature in the original novel) to produce a first draft of the play. The script is undergoing a series of rehearsed readings this autumn and will undergo further development before a national tour, planned to begin in spring 2011.

Monkeywood would like to thank all those who attended the Script in Hand performance for their contributions to the feedback discussion which followed.

Developed with The Lowry Studio, supported by Arts Council England and funded through grants for the arts, Once in a House on Fire is based on the characters, themes and places in the memoir of the same name by Andrea Ashworth. It is an inspiring, vibrant, truthful and moving story of sisters, survival and growing up, set across South Manchester during the 1970s and 80s.

Monkeywood would like to thank: Porl Cooper, The Lowry, Arts Council England, Peter Holden, Wynne Moran, Rob Faulkner, Andrea Prudhoe, Rachel Quinn, Sarah Chadwick at Curtis Brown, the students at Xaverian College and Chorlton High School, Marie Critchley for her lightblub moment and, of course, Andrea Ashworth for sharing her inspirational story and for her continued support.

For more information on Monkeywood follow @monkeywood on twitter or on the Monkeywood Theatre facebook page.

Once in a House on Fire will help to support Women’s Worldwide Web. For more information visit http://www.womensworldwideweb.org.