A powerful and bold new play exploring the themes of menstruation, mental health, sexuality and women as monsters opens at the Three Minute Theatre in Manchester on 10th March.
The Curse tells the story of Char and Lola, their frustration, anger and confusion they face as teenage girls and how they deal, or don’t deal, with it.
Originally debuting as a ten minute short late last year, the play got excellent feedback and was awarded funding by Arts Council England to develop it into a full length piece and is now being performed at the Three Minute Theatre by emerging young actors from Manchester.
The play was penned by Jane Bradley, a fiction writer and editor whose short stories have appeared in print and online around the globe, most recently in Spoke: An Anthology of New Queer Voices (Dog Horn Publishing, 2015). She has been longlisted for a Young Enigma Award, selected as one of Nokia’s fifty Remarkable Women, and is a participant in Common Word’s Women in the Spotlight programme.
She is the founder and director of For Books’ Sake, the charitable organisation championing writing by women, and the editor of short story collections Short Stack (2012), Derby Shorts (2013), Tongue in Cheek (2015) and (RE)Sisters (2016). She delivers writing workshops to women across the UK, and her journalism has been published by The Guardian, Red, Bitch and more. The Curse is her first play.
To tie in with the play, Jane has been offering free creative writing workshops to young women via the charity Reclaim. She has also collaborated with the LGBT Foundation to deliver workshops.
“I believe that young women need an outlet for their frustrations, and creativity, in whatever form, provides an excellent release.” Jane commented.
“Young women are too often demonised or dismissed, periods and blood are not discussed, and PMT is used as a tool to ridicule and control. The play throws up a lot of issues that we don’t talk about enough and I hope that young women, and indeed women of all ages, will connect and enjoy it. I hope that men will come along as well and gain some valuable insight.”
The original play came out of a joint Three Minute Theatre (3MT) and Common Word project called ‘Women in the Spotlight’, which looked to help develop stage writing by women.
John Topliff, producer at 3MT said of the The Curse: “It’s a stunning piece of work, very brave and innovative. We knew from the start that it was going to be something special and we’re thrilled to be staging it as a full length production.”
The play is being directed by Gina T Frost, founder of the Three Minute Theatre and the Manchester Shakespeare Company. Gina is committed to enabling women’s voices in the Arts. She was runner up in the ‘Inspiring Women: Leadership in the Arts’ 2015. She is a veteran performer, singer, actress and teacher.
Gina says: “It’s inspiring to be working with such talented young people as Jane and the young cast: Amy Doyle, Sophie Elisabeth Dervan, Josh Wilkinson and Nathaniel Laydon. It’s about time we had a female narrative on this subject.”
The Curse is on at the Three Minute Theatre in Manchester from 10th-12th March. Tickets cost £8 and are available from Skiddle: http://bit.ly/TheCurseTickets
