DOGSTAR is delighted to announce SPARK, the inaugural Highland New Play Festival, taking place at Eden Court, Inverness from 18-21 January 2024. The festival is being presented in partnership with Eden Court and Playwrights' Studio Scotland and is financially supported by Creative Scotland. SPARK – The Highland New Play Festival will uncover, support and celebrate playwrights from the Highlands and Islands. The festival has come about in recognition of a growing number of playwrights, actors, directors and other theatre professionals striving to create new theatre in our region. SPARK will provide a platform for experiment and discussion and give audiences the opportunity to discover and engage with exciting new plays and their creators at early stages of development.
OPEN CALL FOR PLAYWRIGHTS - GO TO THE LINK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON SUBMITTING A NEW PLAY IDEA FOR OUR SCRATCH SESSIONS
The festival will consist of four engaging strands to appeal to both audiences and the growing body of theatre professionals in the Highlands:
Script Sessions: rehearsed readings of new plays. Audiences will get to hear never-seen-before plays from new and established playwrights before they reach the stage with the audience invited to give feedback and engage in a discussion about the play afterwards.
Scratch Sessions: an opportunity for audiences to get a glimpse into the creation and development of new plays, with writers presenting extracts from work-in-progress with an opportunity for feedback and discussion afterwards. These sessions also allow playwrights to develop new ideas and work on specific sections of their plays with a director and a group of actors. Writers will be invited to submit their ideas and extracts via an open call facilitated by The Playwrights’ Studio. More information about the open call is here.
Speakout Sessions: ranging from practical panel discussions about how Scottish theatre companies commission and engage with new writers, to topical discussions about the place of Highland theatre in the wider world. Featuring guest experts from home and abroad.
Ceilidh Sessions will top off the festival, celebratory events with live performances from local artists, poets and musicians on the Friday and Saturday night.
This will be the first edition of SPARK. Our aim is for SPARK to become a biennial event, a new cultural fixture for January in the Highlands.
More details about featured plays and festival speakers and performers will follow!
OPEN CALL FOR PLAYWRIGHTS - GO TO THE LINK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON SUBMITTING A NEW PLAY IDEA FOR OUR SCRATCH SESSIONS
The festival will consist of four engaging strands to appeal to both audiences and the growing body of theatre professionals in the Highlands:
Script Sessions: rehearsed readings of new plays. Audiences will get to hear never-seen-before plays from new and established playwrights before they reach the stage with the audience invited to give feedback and engage in a discussion about the play afterwards.
Scratch Sessions: an opportunity for audiences to get a glimpse into the creation and development of new plays, with writers presenting extracts from work-in-progress with an opportunity for feedback and discussion afterwards. These sessions also allow playwrights to develop new ideas and work on specific sections of their plays with a director and a group of actors. Writers will be invited to submit their ideas and extracts via an open call facilitated by The Playwrights’ Studio. More information about the open call is here.
Speakout Sessions: ranging from practical panel discussions about how Scottish theatre companies commission and engage with new writers, to topical discussions about the place of Highland theatre in the wider world. Featuring guest experts from home and abroad.
Ceilidh Sessions will top off the festival, celebratory events with live performances from local artists, poets and musicians on the Friday and Saturday night.
This will be the first edition of SPARK. Our aim is for SPARK to become a biennial event, a new cultural fixture for January in the Highlands.
More details about featured plays and festival speakers and performers will follow!
NIGHTLANDS by Jack MacGregor
SUMMERHALL Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2022
Nightlands is a play about Russia today, about how authoritarianism weaponises nostalgia, a psychological thriller located in the ex-Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden, Svalbard, during a ferocious Arctic winter. Set in 1999, at the dawn of the Putin autocracy, Pyramiden’s caretakers play out a generational and ideological conflict. Sasha is nostalgic for the collapsed communist past, Slava looks to the possibilities of a future free from authoritarianism and poverty. Their epic struggle rages like the storms of the Polar Night as Slava tries to shake off the ghosts of Russia's past.
with
REBECCA WILKIE as Slava
MATTHEW ZAJAC as Sasha
Director JACK MACGREGOR
Designer ALI MACLAURIN
Composer BRIAN MCALPINE
Sound Design BRIAN MCALPINE & JONNY HARDIE
Lighting GRANT ANDERSON
ARCTIC WINDS PART 1
Dogstar emerged from the pandemic with a brand new project.
Arctic Winds encompasses two thematically-linked new plays from the Highlands. Part 1 saw these plays rehearsed, produced and filmed for screenings in some venues across Scotland and online to school groups in the Highlands & Northern Sweden as part of the project's Creative Learning Programme, delivered in partnership with our long-term collaborators, Profilteatern. The project was supported by Creative Scotland, the Fraser Foundation & the Scottish Government's Arctic Connections Programme.
Nightlands is the debut play by Jack MacGregor, an exciting new theatre maker from Inverness. The Fallen Angels of the Moine, on the other hand, is by the Highlands’ most experienced and prolific playwright, George Gunn. Filming of the productions took place at Universal Hall, Findhorn in February 2022, directed by Brian Ross (Circling A Fox, No One But Me, Shetland Lone Star).
NIGHTLANDS
by Jack MacGregor
with Rebecca Wilkie & Matthew Zajac
THE FALLEN ANGELS OF THE MOINE
by George Gunn, directed by Matthew Zajac
with Rebecca Wilkie, Matthew Zajac & Tara McGirr
Set & Costume Design Ali Maclaurin
Music & Sound Brian McAlpine & Jonny Hardie
Lighting Grant Anderson
Film Director Brian Ross
Production Manager Nils den Hertog
Stage Manager Chariya Glasse-Davis
Assistant Director Keira Smith
Creative Learning Officer Laura Walker
Creative Learning Workshop Assistant Vicky Macrae
Camera Operator Jason Sinclair
Production Photographer Paul Campbell
Produced by Donna Macrae & Matthew Zajac
The Plays
NIGHTLANDS
“Funny how you can get so convinced of your own greatness, that you think it’s going to last forever. Then all that’s left of you is memory, then ruins, then nothing.”
Nightlands is a dislocated environmental thriller which takes place in the extraordinary ex-Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden on the Svalbard Archipelago during a ferocious Arctic winter. Set in 1999 in the twilight of a decade of capitalist chaos in Russia and the dawn of the Putin autocracy, the ghost town's caretakers, an old man and a young woman, play out a generational conflict. Slava and Sasha are antagonistic representatives of opposing world views, he nostalgic for the collapsed communist past, she embracing the possibilities of the new world order. But as the Polar Night and its storms close in on them, they are forced to acknowledge both their need for and their rejection of each other. Set in an environment of mighty natural forces, Nightlands is a powerful metaphor for how authoritarians weaponise nostalgia.
THE FALLEN ANGELS OF THE MOINE
“You are entering an age of loneliness, when no bird will be heard singing, nor a bee humming glad between flowers. Will you be able to live with the silence – the silence of extinction?”
In the devastatingly beautiful and delicate bog of the Moine on Scotland’s North Coast, a scientist, a crofter and a councillor, Cianna, Cait and Robbie, are confronted by military-industrial companies wanting to build a rocket launching site not far from the nuclear dump. Cianna monitors the land’s health and the results are worrying. Cait has apocalyptic visions, and Robbie is possessed by the voices of those who control him. All the while, the Angels watch them. Rich in poetry, myth and legend, The Fallen Angels of the Moine, is a tragicomedy about ordinary people grappling with the epic changes shaking our world as governments and business increasingly compete with nature & the implications this brings for human survival.
Arctic Winds encompasses two thematically-linked new plays from the Highlands. Part 1 saw these plays rehearsed, produced and filmed for screenings in some venues across Scotland and online to school groups in the Highlands & Northern Sweden as part of the project's Creative Learning Programme, delivered in partnership with our long-term collaborators, Profilteatern. The project was supported by Creative Scotland, the Fraser Foundation & the Scottish Government's Arctic Connections Programme.
Nightlands is the debut play by Jack MacGregor, an exciting new theatre maker from Inverness. The Fallen Angels of the Moine, on the other hand, is by the Highlands’ most experienced and prolific playwright, George Gunn. Filming of the productions took place at Universal Hall, Findhorn in February 2022, directed by Brian Ross (Circling A Fox, No One But Me, Shetland Lone Star).
NIGHTLANDS
by Jack MacGregor
with Rebecca Wilkie & Matthew Zajac
THE FALLEN ANGELS OF THE MOINE
by George Gunn, directed by Matthew Zajac
with Rebecca Wilkie, Matthew Zajac & Tara McGirr
Set & Costume Design Ali Maclaurin
Music & Sound Brian McAlpine & Jonny Hardie
Lighting Grant Anderson
Film Director Brian Ross
Production Manager Nils den Hertog
Stage Manager Chariya Glasse-Davis
Assistant Director Keira Smith
Creative Learning Officer Laura Walker
Creative Learning Workshop Assistant Vicky Macrae
Camera Operator Jason Sinclair
Production Photographer Paul Campbell
Produced by Donna Macrae & Matthew Zajac
The Plays
NIGHTLANDS
“Funny how you can get so convinced of your own greatness, that you think it’s going to last forever. Then all that’s left of you is memory, then ruins, then nothing.”
Nightlands is a dislocated environmental thriller which takes place in the extraordinary ex-Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden on the Svalbard Archipelago during a ferocious Arctic winter. Set in 1999 in the twilight of a decade of capitalist chaos in Russia and the dawn of the Putin autocracy, the ghost town's caretakers, an old man and a young woman, play out a generational conflict. Slava and Sasha are antagonistic representatives of opposing world views, he nostalgic for the collapsed communist past, she embracing the possibilities of the new world order. But as the Polar Night and its storms close in on them, they are forced to acknowledge both their need for and their rejection of each other. Set in an environment of mighty natural forces, Nightlands is a powerful metaphor for how authoritarians weaponise nostalgia.
THE FALLEN ANGELS OF THE MOINE
“You are entering an age of loneliness, when no bird will be heard singing, nor a bee humming glad between flowers. Will you be able to live with the silence – the silence of extinction?”
In the devastatingly beautiful and delicate bog of the Moine on Scotland’s North Coast, a scientist, a crofter and a councillor, Cianna, Cait and Robbie, are confronted by military-industrial companies wanting to build a rocket launching site not far from the nuclear dump. Cianna monitors the land’s health and the results are worrying. Cait has apocalyptic visions, and Robbie is possessed by the voices of those who control him. All the while, the Angels watch them. Rich in poetry, myth and legend, The Fallen Angels of the Moine, is a tragicomedy about ordinary people grappling with the epic changes shaking our world as governments and business increasingly compete with nature & the implications this brings for human survival.
| arctic_windsprogramme.pdf |
ARCTIC WINDS CREATIVE LEARNING PROGRAMME
We have been working in secondary schools in Highland & Moray while our partners in Sweden, Profilteatern, have been doing the same in Umeå, Sweden. Swedish students have created their own set designs for NIGHTLANDS and Scottish students have explored devising through research and multi-role performing through a series of workshops led by Creative Learning Officer Laura Walker and Workshop Leaders Vicky Macrae and Sophie Wink. We have produced a Learning Resource Pack to assist teachers and students with further work on the themes, content and production aspects of the plays. It's an excellent resource for anyone, so you are invited to download the pack here:
We have been working in secondary schools in Highland & Moray while our partners in Sweden, Profilteatern, have been doing the same in Umeå, Sweden. Swedish students have created their own set designs for NIGHTLANDS and Scottish students have explored devising through research and multi-role performing through a series of workshops led by Creative Learning Officer Laura Walker and Workshop Leaders Vicky Macrae and Sophie Wink. We have produced a Learning Resource Pack to assist teachers and students with further work on the themes, content and production aspects of the plays. It's an excellent resource for anyone, so you are invited to download the pack here:
| learning_resource_pack__small_.pdf |
CIRCLING A FOX - THE STORY OF THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS presented by Matthew Zajac, directed by Brian Ross
Broadcast on BBC Scotland, Circling a Fox takes Matthew Zajac’s multi-award-winning play about his father’s life and turns it into a genre-bending documentary film that challenges received notions of personal and national identity. It is a deeply personal story, taking us on a journey from war-torn Poland and Ukraine to the Highlands of Scotland and then back again. Blending documentary, theatre and poetic drama-reconstruction, Circling a Fox tells the story of Matthew's quest to seek the truth about his father’s past and his efforts to use theatre to reach out to a family he never knew he had.
CHECK IT OUT HERE:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/circlingafox
Broadcast on BBC Scotland, Circling a Fox takes Matthew Zajac’s multi-award-winning play about his father’s life and turns it into a genre-bending documentary film that challenges received notions of personal and national identity. It is a deeply personal story, taking us on a journey from war-torn Poland and Ukraine to the Highlands of Scotland and then back again. Blending documentary, theatre and poetic drama-reconstruction, Circling a Fox tells the story of Matthew's quest to seek the truth about his father’s past and his efforts to use theatre to reach out to a family he never knew he had.
CHECK IT OUT HERE:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/circlingafox
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FACTOR 9
The Infected Blood Scandal: THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS CIRCLING A FOX The Story of the Tailor of Inverness all available: via Vimeo On Demand |
Based on the testimonies of Robert Mackie and Bruce Norval
with STEWART PORTER as Rab & MATTHEW ZAJAC as Bruce |
Factor 9 is inspired by the story of the biggest healthcare disaster in the history of the UK’s National Health Service. This is a play based on the lives, deaths and testimonies of some of those affected by treatment with contaminated blood – an horrific story of blighted lives which explores the causes that allowed HIV, Hepatitis C and CJD infection to be spread among the community of blood products users in Scotland, the rest of the UK and throughout the world during the late 1970s and 1980s.
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Using transcripts, interviews, newspaper articles and other documentary evidence, and mixing this with metaphors and myths from the realms of science fiction and horror, Factor 9 is a visceral multi-media performance dominated by that vital fluid, blood. At its core, it tells a story of ordinary people and how their lives were shockingly changed forever.
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Prepare to be physically shaken by Factor 9.”
Yasmin Suleiman, The List "I have NEVER been more affected, impressed and devastated by a play in a long theatrical life…A play of shame, pain and extraordinary power." Pete Searle, audience member “Superbly tense drama, with Porter and Zajac on top form.” Ed Frankl, Edinburgh Evening News ****** “Factor 9 says what it has to say about a mighty public scandal, in a vividly theatrical style that no-one who sees it is ever likely to forget” Joyce MacMillan, The Scotsman **** “The playwright got it just right…powerful and very human.” Paula Murray, Sunday Express |
“Be sure to see it."
Anders Sjögren, Västerbottens-Kuriren Sweden “…unforgettable, high quality and hard-hitting…” Margaret Chrystall, Inverness Courier ***** “Stop what you are doing and check to see if Dogstar Theatre Factor 9 is coming to you. Gut wrenching, tragic, furious, brilliant.” Bruce MacGregor, Inverness “SUPERB, POWERFUL and SEAMLESS performance – still shaking with the effects of it – best theatre I’ve seen since the Tailor of Inverness.” Joanna Boyce, Edinburgh |
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THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS
Written & Performed by Matthew Zajac Violin Jonny Hardie Directed by Ben Harrison Music by Jonny Hardie & Gavin Marwick Designed by Ali Maclaurin Lighting by Kai Fischer Production filmed & edited by Brian Ross |
Matthew Zajac's internationally acclaimed play about his Polish father has captivated audiences in theatres across the world. With over 275 performances and playing to over 40,000 people in 12 countries since opening at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Tailor of Inverness has taken its place as one of the great Scottish theatre productions.
The Tailor of Inverness, with its cry for victims of war and forced migration everywhere, is "a universal work of theatre" (Sunday Herald). |
"I come from the Soviets and the Nazis. I come from a farm, from the forests and fields of green Ukraine, from the resettlement camps of Germany, from the beaches of the Adriatic, from the grimy streets of Glasgow and the cool air of Inverness."
"A TRIUMPH" The Observer, UK
"COMPELLING, IMPASSIONED...A FINE ACTOR" New York Times, USA
"INDISPENSABLE" Dagens Nyheter, Sweden
"DON'T MISS IT" Radio Adelaide, Australia
"A SPECIAL GEM" The Day, Ukraine
"THE MOST ELECTRIC THEATRE IMAGINABLE" ayoungertheatre.com, UK
"A TOWERING PIECE OF WORK" Sunday Independent, Ireland
"ZAJAC IS TRULY A VISIONARY" Broadway World, USA
BEST ACTOR CRITICS' AWARDS FOR THEATRE IN SCOTLAND
BEST SOLO PERFORMER THE STAGE NEWSPAPER EDINBURGH FRINGE AWARDS
SCOTSMAN FRINGE FIRST AWARD WINNER
"One actor, one fiddler, one brilliant and moving piece of theatre...See it, friends." April Alliston, New York
"One of the most moving theatre experiences we've ever had." David Getz, New York
"Unbelievably moving and unexpected." Misha Glenny, London
"Matthew Zajac's performance was incredible. Wish I could go again tomorrow." Kevin Hanrahan, Dublin
"It really was an international wonder" Hanne Larsen, Copenhagen
"What a story, what a play, what a performance...I could barely speak afterwards." Gerda Stevenson, Edinburgh
"A TRIUMPH" The Observer, UK
"COMPELLING, IMPASSIONED...A FINE ACTOR" New York Times, USA
"INDISPENSABLE" Dagens Nyheter, Sweden
"DON'T MISS IT" Radio Adelaide, Australia
"A SPECIAL GEM" The Day, Ukraine
"THE MOST ELECTRIC THEATRE IMAGINABLE" ayoungertheatre.com, UK
"A TOWERING PIECE OF WORK" Sunday Independent, Ireland
"ZAJAC IS TRULY A VISIONARY" Broadway World, USA
BEST ACTOR CRITICS' AWARDS FOR THEATRE IN SCOTLAND
BEST SOLO PERFORMER THE STAGE NEWSPAPER EDINBURGH FRINGE AWARDS
SCOTSMAN FRINGE FIRST AWARD WINNER
"One actor, one fiddler, one brilliant and moving piece of theatre...See it, friends." April Alliston, New York
"One of the most moving theatre experiences we've ever had." David Getz, New York
"Unbelievably moving and unexpected." Misha Glenny, London
"Matthew Zajac's performance was incredible. Wish I could go again tomorrow." Kevin Hanrahan, Dublin
"It really was an international wonder" Hanne Larsen, Copenhagen
"What a story, what a play, what a performance...I could barely speak afterwards." Gerda Stevenson, Edinburgh
CIRCLING A FOX - The Story of The Tailor of Inverness
A film by Brian Ross
Executive Producer John Archer
A Hopscotch Films Production
Featuring Matthew Zajac, Gavin Marwick, Jonny Hardie,
Natalia Sztepko,Eugene Latsik, Iona Zajac and Magdalena Kaleta
This very special film will also premiere on 11 May.
Circling A Fox is film director Brian Ross’s beautiful, moving documentary about the story behind The Tailor of Inverness. Brian’s film follows Dogstar as we tour with the play in Poland and Ukraine. It also features video and audio recordings of Matthew’s father and footage from the Highlands and the first trip of discovery to Ukraine in 2003. Circling A Fox blends documentary, theatre and poetic drama-reconstruction to tell the story of Matthew's quest to seek the truth about his father’s past and his efforts to use theatre to reach out to a family he never knew existed.
“This is a beautifully-made film…both a road movie and a moving family drama, and although the story begins the best part of a century ago it is completely relevant to our own times. In the end, it affirms the astonishing power of love.” James Robertson
A film by Brian Ross
Executive Producer John Archer
A Hopscotch Films Production
Featuring Matthew Zajac, Gavin Marwick, Jonny Hardie,
Natalia Sztepko,Eugene Latsik, Iona Zajac and Magdalena Kaleta
This very special film will also premiere on 11 May.
Circling A Fox is film director Brian Ross’s beautiful, moving documentary about the story behind The Tailor of Inverness. Brian’s film follows Dogstar as we tour with the play in Poland and Ukraine. It also features video and audio recordings of Matthew’s father and footage from the Highlands and the first trip of discovery to Ukraine in 2003. Circling A Fox blends documentary, theatre and poetic drama-reconstruction to tell the story of Matthew's quest to seek the truth about his father’s past and his efforts to use theatre to reach out to a family he never knew existed.
“This is a beautifully-made film…both a road movie and a moving family drama, and although the story begins the best part of a century ago it is completely relevant to our own times. In the end, it affirms the astonishing power of love.” James Robertson
These outstanding film and theatre experiences are available to view for £3 or download for £8
Please do pass the above links on or share with friends using the social media buttons to the right hand side of this page. And remember to tag us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to let us know what you thought of the films! Use the hashtag #DogstarTheatre on Twitter and Instagram.
Please do pass the above links on or share with friends using the social media buttons to the right hand side of this page. And remember to tag us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to let us know what you thought of the films! Use the hashtag #DogstarTheatre on Twitter and Instagram.
Please subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to hear about future shows
with every good wish
Matthew
www.dogstartheatre.co.uk
with every good wish
Matthew
www.dogstartheatre.co.uk
