The Road to Huntsville - a new play by Stephanie Ridings.
I'm Stephanie Ridings, and I'm a writer, performer, theatre maker. I'm working with Independent Producer Pippa Frith, and a team of other brilliant creatives to make this project happen. Last time Pippa and I worked together we won an award (ooo get us), so I like to think this makes us a pretty good team.
The Road to Huntsville is
an exploration into unconventional love, state homicide and challenging our
predetermined perceptions.
Through a period of research including a trip to Huntsville, Texas, meetings with the old prison warden and more I have been exploring and examining the issues surrounding women who fall in love with men on death row. I have been writing, planning and developing this research over the past 18 months into a full length theatre show. Here's the blurb:
![]()
“The first time I kiss him, his lips are still warm. I
hold him. Take in his smell for the first and last time. This is how it ends.”
I’m researching women who marry
men on death row. I’m fascinated how and why this happens. I’m corresponding
with Jonny, incarcerated on death row in Texas. I’m trying to understand the
man, not the crime and what makes a killer so attractive. I’m trying to
understand the death penalty and how that fits into our 21st Century
world. I’m trying not to be judgemental.
--
We want to take The Road to Huntsville to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This is one of the very best places in the world to platform new theatre. It's a brilliant opportunity to get great audiences, promoters and presenters (who can help secure future touring) and press reviews and coverage.
It is also however, notoriously impossible to fund. Which is where you come in. We have secured one of the very best venues (Summerhall), but we need a bit of help to get there. We've managed to secure some funds, and we're also contributing cash ourselves, but a little further help - to be precise £1000 of help - would really plug the gap. This money will help us cover the costs of travelling to Edinburgh, having a simple place to lay our heads of an evening, and promoting the show while we're in there.
By helping us now, you are helping the work not only reach audiences in Edinburgh, but also hopefully helping to secure future tour dates - taking the work to audiences more widely nationally and maybe even internationally.
We'd love it if your were able to help, and donate whatever you can afford, but if you can't help us with donations, then please do help us by sharing this campaign instead - that would also be brilliant useful.
We've created some perks, which we hope you think are a bit exciting, or at the very least some way to showing our gratitude.
A little bit more about our team
Stephanie Ridings –
Writer / Performer:
Stephanie was born and rasied in Blackpool,
she gained a First Class degree in Contemporary Arts. Her
recent major project, Unknown Male, opened at Birmingham REP, Door in January
2015, as a co-production between the REP and Independent Producer, Pippa Frith.
The project won the Peter Brook/Mark Marvin Rent subsidy award. Her first major
script Me, Mum & Dusty Springfield enjoyed a sellout Edinburgh
Festival and went on to be supported by The Lowry (Salford) and tour
nationally. She has been Artist in Residence at Contact Theatre (Manchester)
during which time she wrote The National Express, which went on to be
selected for Re:Play at The Library Theatre (Manchester). In the past she has
been commissioned to write for Women & Theatre, Birmingham REP’s Learning
and Participation and for Corby Young Actors at the Core at Corby. More
recently she has been commissioned to write a short radio play for Cotesbach
Education Trust. She has also developed text for devised performances
including, Obstacles to Coming Home, 360 Degrees (and Falling), I’ve never
been to the moon (Royal Exchange, Studio). In 2012 she was part of
Writing West Midlands Room 204 scheme, which supports the development of
writers in the West Midlands and in 2013 was a writer on Birmingham Rep’s inaugural
Foundry Programme. She was selected for Creative England’s
inaugural iWrite programme in 2015 and is currently working on a script for Live Lunch hosted by the Royal Court.
www.stephanieridings.com
Jonathan
V McGrath – Director:
Jonathan V McGrath trained in acting at the Manchester
Metropolitan University School of Theatre and has held associate and resident
artist status in venues across the UK, he is a Director, Dramaturge and
Lecturer and has made and toured new theatre productions for venues and
festivals across the world. Jonathan is currently living in the North of
England.
Jonathan is an accomplished director and
has a long list of successful performances to his name that have been diverse
in scale, style and staging. His work has been most heavily influenced by
the work of directors Jerzy Grotowski, Louise Lowe and Simon McBurney.
Jonathan's work is made with a strong
visual style and the audience is complicit with what goes on, largely site
specific in nature Jonathan has fed, blindfolded, boozed and flirted audiences
through his productions. Jonathan's first company Ikebana Performance took
it's ethos from the ancient art of ikebana flower arrangement, the flowers are
held with the same importance as the vase and the shelf and the light. All
components are equal in the composition. This is an ethos that Jonathan has
carried with him throughout his career in theatre.
Jonathan has several new productions
opening throughout 2015 and early 2016 and is currently being mentored in
directing for opera by Stefan Janski; Head of Opera at the Royal Northern
College of Music.
www.jonathanmcgrath.com
Rachel Bunce – Film Maker:
Rachel, Director of RB Films, shoots, produces
& edits films for theatre folk. She's worked extensively with China Plate
Theatre to produce high quality trailers for artists such as Chris Thorpe,
Action Hero, Caroline Horton and Inspector Sands. Her films have strongly
supported theatre companies' marketing and promotion campaigns and helped
venues reach new audiences.
Rachel's passions take her into the education and
charity sectors too; she runs filmmaking workshops for young people and has
worked as a photographer in Uganda, Kenya & Burundi for charity Send a Cow.
Her first self-directed work was made in Albania, filming music therapy in
situations like orphanages, street children centres and prisons. She is
currently working in The Midlands on a variety of projects; 'Macbeth: Blood Will
Have Blood' for Contender Charlie, 'The Boy Who Never Grew Up' for Amelia Bird
and 'Holy Presents' for Humanish.
www.rachelbunce.co.uk
Pippa Frith – Producer
Pippa Frith
is an Independent Producer based in
Birmingham. She works with artists to create art that aims to surprise and
delight audiences nationally and internationally. She is passionate about
working in the regions to create new work of high quality, showcase new voices
and grow new audiences. Her primary background is theatre, although she also
has experience of Spoken Word Outdoor Circus work), Visual Arts / Performance Crossover and cross-media projects.
She is the
long-term producer for celebrated solo artist Francesca Millican-Slater (Me, Myself and Miss Gibbs, supported by
mac birmingham; The Forensics of a Flat, in
association with Birmingham REP; My
Dearest Girls, commissioned by Shropshire Archives and Arts Alive), GOLD
(commissioned by the New Vic Theatre). She co-produced Unknown Male, by Stephanie
Ridings with Birmingham REP in
January 2015, winning the Peter Brook / Mark Marvin Award for the project.
She was
Co-Producer of Our Fathers (Babakas, commissioned
by Warwick Arts Centre, mac birmingham and China Plate), supporting the work through two national tours, a number of
international dates and a critically acclaimed Edinburgh Festival Fringe run
(2013). She is also Co-Director of well-loved work-in-progress platform PILOT Nights. As a member of The Holding Space consortium
She has been
a visiting lecturer at The University of
Birmingham and Birmingham School of
Acting and regularly mentors emerging producers and young artists and
companies. Before developing![]()
her
producing portfolio Pippa worked as Project Manager for Women & Theatre (Birmingham), as a Programmer at the Drum Arts Centre; was Project Manager of
The Decibel Performing Arts Showcase 2007
and for Fierce Earth, working on a
range of projects included Fierce!
Festival. She studied Contemporary Arts, majoring in Theatre and Live Art
at Manchester Metropolitan University.
www.pippafrith.co.uk
Duncan Grimley - Sound Designer
Duncan Grimley is a sound design artist who creates sound and
music for outdoor and site-specific performances, nationally touring theatre
shows, installations, podcasts and other digital media.
Sound
and composition for live performances includes Wings of Desire and B-Town for International Dance Festival
Birmingham. Silent Planet for Upstart Theatre, Ride and Safe for
ZoieLogicandKapa Haka Tale and Headphones for Corey Baker Dance. Other music production credits
include Rosie Kay Dance Company, Bare Bones, Protein Dance, Morning of Owl, Pro
Dance, Hearth Theatre, Women & Theatre and Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
www.duncangrimley.com
