SCREAM!

A closed competition for group members

Situations to make you howl in despair or lose control to laughter.

Three new short plays by Worcestershire writers were performed by local professionals Peter Sutton, Rob Swinton and Laurence Saunders, and directed for script in the hand performance by Kim Greengrass

At The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster Saturday October 16th

• Whose Head Am I In? by Tom Bryson (Kidderminster)
  Guzzling wine and with no will to live, young graduate John gets the shock of his life when his dad's ghost visits him. John is compelled to confront his self-deception. Energised to 'get a life', he foils the plans of his creator, the Writer - for John refuses to be a 'puppet' character in the Writer's play. Powerful psycho-drama.

• Mother's Day by Ali Oxtoby (Malvern)
  Mother said she didn't want a Mother's Day present this year from Craig and Hugh. She lied. And now eccentric b&b owner Evan has taken it upon himself to bring the warring brothers closer together thereby granting their mother her dearest wish. But it's not as easy as Evan thinks. And he can't help but take it personally. Delicious dark comedy

• Robbery With Violet by Anne Bucknall (Hartlebury)
  They've practised to perfection. Will it be the perfect crime? Or a wedding breakfast behind bars? Crime could pay – if Violet doesn't first throw in the trowel! Three men try to sort out their money problems in the swiftest way possible, but where does Violet come into their scheme? Lovely light comedy.

Sound: Matt Yarwood, Lights: Ben Harper, Front of House: The Nonentities

Possible starting points for the Playwrights' work were:

• Edward Munch produced a famous painting called The Scream.
• Scream is a clever post-modern horror film.
• "It's a scream" is a common way of expressing "What a hoot!" or "Great fun!"
• If something makes you scream that could be because it is immensely irritating.
• Screaming is most often connected with terror, but it could also indicate hysteria or frenzied adulation such as that experienced by young girls at a Busted concert.

Extracts from the guidelines for entries

1. Scripts needed to deal with scream/screaming in some form or other to satisfy the umbrella title. Apart from that entrants had carte blanche with the material, format and style of the piece.
2. Work had to be in the form of three handers i.e. pieces for three actors: 3M. The ages of the actor are one man around 50; one young man (twenties) and one man of either 50 or 30-40. (Doubling was acceptable but needed to be indicated and shown to be workable by the writer). Pieces needed to be about 30 minutes in length. They are self-standing not extracts from longer work.