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Changing Your Nation and Changing Your Station: the Playwright's Relationship to Heritage, Representation and Legacy

National Theatre Archive Building, The Cut, London SE1 9PX

FREE EVENT
In conversation with KWAME KWEI-ARMAH, MICHAEL BHIM and DEIRDRE OSBORNE

This discussion will focus upon the transformations of perception wrought by 'changing your nation and changing your station'. It considers the effects of history in the present, the reception abroad of contemporary dramatists and the ways in which they seek to project their work beyond the UK. This is a chance for taking stock for both writers - who arguably exemplify two different generations of black British writers.
MICHAEL BHIM won the Alfred Fagon Award in 2005 for Dreams of Hailey. This was followed by Distant Violence at the Tricycle Theatre and Pure Gold at the Soho Theatre. He is currently writing commissioned plays for the Royal Court and Hampstead theatres, Tiata Fahodzi and the Caribbean Unity Theatre. His short story, Rocket Man was recently published by Brand literary magazine.

KWAME KWEI-ARMAH has written eight plays; the Royal National Theatre commissioned three: Elmina's Kitchen (2003), the first play ever by a black British-born dramatist to be staged in the West End (Garrick Theatre, 2005). Fix Up (2004) was followed by Statement of Regret (2007), Let There Be Love was staged at the Tricycle Theatre for two seasons in 2007/8 as was Seize the Day (2009). Elmina’s Kitchen and Let Their Be Love have been produced in Baltimore Repertory Theater, USA. He is also known as an actor, singer, broadcaster and television writer.

DR. DEIRDRE OSBORNE is a Senior Lecturer in Drama at Goldsmiths, University of London and a literary activist for promoting the work of black British writers. Having interviewed and published essays about many black British writers over the past decade, she edited an anthology of critical articles and plays, Hidden Gems (Oberon, 2008) and is writing Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium (Manchester University Press).

This Society for Theatre Research lecture supports the work of The Black British Theatre Archive, a joint partnership between the NT Studio and Sustained Theatre.  For further information about the Society for Theatre Research, visit: www.str.org.uk.