Our headline event for our first weekend will showcase the best in local female playwrights under 17percent’s ‘She Writes’ banner.

We open with a rehearsed reading of BBC Prize Winner Sarah Hehir’s award-winning Radio 4 play, ‘Bang Up’, performed by a sterling cast led by our own Emma Dewhurst.

Sarah’s play was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 this month to much critical and listener acclaim. She is a proflific playwriter who regularly contributes to cultural and community events in Medway.

The reading will be followed by 17percent’s dark comedy short play showcase, based on the HG Wells story, The Door in the Wall. Directed by Amy Clare Tasker, this is a one night only special re-launch of the She Writes showcase for female playwrights. A Q&A session with the writers, performers and director will take place at the end.

Aliens. Siblings reunited. And some inappropriate games playing… She Writes is back and it’s bigger and better than ever!

The event will take place at Rochester Visitor Information Centre on Saturday, October 5th from 7pm – 10pm (doors open 6.30pm). Tickets are £6 and can be purchased via our Eventbrite page here.

In July, 17Percent set four female playwrights a challenge: to write a play no longer than 17 minutes, based on any aspect of HG Wells’ mystical story ‘The door in the wall’.  She Writes: What’s through the door? is an unexpected evening of three different, but linked, one act plays all inspired by the same story.

The plays are:

The Audition by Sam Hall. It’s just another audition for a sci-fi show for a wannabe actor, that is, until the other aliens start acting pretty odd, and all is not what it seems.

The Fourth Circle by Sarah Hehir. Two siblings are reunited after the death of their mother.

Losing Light by Whoop’n’wail (Deborah Klayman and Ali Kemp). Children’s games turn sinister when they’re played by adults.

Praise for the writers’ other plays:

‘Clever and original’ The Scotsman on Whoop’n’Wail’s eXclusion

‘A complex structure masterfully developed and kept under control by Hall, proving her skills in the art of story-telling.’ Teatro.org on Sam Hall’s Seven tunes on the flute

‘Tough, warm, beautifully observed and written from the inside with real heart.’ BBC commissioning editor on Sarah Hehir’s radio play Bang Up.

The Writers:
– Sam Hall’s plays have been performed in the UK and internationally, her play ‘Seven tunes on the flute’ received its world premiere in Italy at the Trends festival of new British Writing, April 2013, and her first play, written long ago whilst at school, won the Six Counties Festival.

– Sarah Hehir is the winner of The 2013 Writer’s Prize sponsored by the BBC Writersroom. Her play ‘Bang Up’ was broadcast on Radio Four on 8 August 2013.

– Whoop’n’wail are Ali Kemp & Deborah Klayman: both performers, and co-founders of Whoop‘n’Wail Theatre Company. Their debut play, ‘eXclusion’, toured the Edinburgh Fringe, Waterloo East Theatre and South Hill Park Arts Centre in 2011.

The Director: Amy Clare Tasker is recently arrived in London from San Francisco, where she is a co-founder of Inkblot Ensemble, an Associate Artist with DIVAfest, EXIT Theatre, and Cutting Ball Theater, and an active member of “YEAH, I Said Feminist: A Theater Salon”. Her TACTICS interview series (Theatre Artists Collected Thoughts Insights Challenges and Strategies for gender parity advocacy) is online at Works by Women San Francisco (www.worksbywomensf.wordpress.com).

The full cast list is yet to be released.

The Rochester Literature Festival is proud to have 17% relaunching ‘She Writes’ at Other Worlds, Other Voices. Sam Hall is an inspiration to female writers, and her support and encouragement is greatly valued.