Performances commence 7.30pm Monday to Friday, 7pm Saturday.
NP = New Play, eligible for the Best Unpublished Play Award.
Tickets are available through the Barn Theatre website.
Monday 19 May
Marlborough Science Academy
(Senior Winners of the Youth Drama Festival)
Shadows of the Stage by James Griggs (NP)
The story follows Katherine, a woman who becomes the focus of The Dreamweaver, a mysterious figure who manipulates dreams to provoke fear through the dreams of mortals. As Katherine navigates a series of chaotic nightmares inspired by her past theatrical roles, The Dreamweaver repeatedly intervenes, unable to resist helping her even though his role should be to let her face her fears alone.
Biggleswade Arts & Theatrical Society
Right on Cue by Barry Lambert
Who is the Battersea Batterer and why is he using a billiard cue? DI Whalley and his team try to solve the mystery in this police comedy but are completely snookered at first in their crackpot investigation. Find out how the case unravels in this hilarious understaffed CID office.
Corvus Amateur Drama Society
Virtual Reality by Alan Arkin
Two strangers meet to prepare for a job. What happens while they wait for instructions becomes increasingly surreal…
Tuesday 20 May
Theatre in the Square
Just Thinking of You by Mary Groom (NP)
Two older people, thrown together in a retirement home, seem to have nothing in common except a love of the theatre and, maybe, a half-remembered song.
Theatre in the Square
Susie by Alice Gill-Carey (NP)
“Tra, la, la, a horse tranquilliser couldn’t stop me today”. Susie is about the last week in the life of a woman in pain. Her brain is ‘like a washing machine on speed’. Whilst the dialogue is peppered with links to Macbeth, this is a very modern tragedy.
Content warning: Contains themes of suicide and mental health issues.
Digswell Players
Queen of the Castle by Mary Portalska (NP)
March 1986. Tony and Sally move in as the new proprietors of The Castle, an abandoned pub in the middle of Norfolk. But their plans to get the pub up and running again go awry when they meet the local residents, encounter some unexpected guests and attempt to organise a party for the pub’s opening night.
Wednesday 21 May
BOATS Theatre
Paper Trail by Sean Lang
In a small run-down hospital archive in the 1990s Mel, the young archivist, meets Angie, an Australian hoping to trace her mother. After some initial reluctance Mel helps her search and uncovers a terrible tale deep in Angie’s past which presents a dilemma – should she tell, or should she keep it hidden?
Back to Front Theatre
Reckoning by Kathy Mead
Set 20 years in the future, in a prison visiting room, where Rachel relives memories of home and hidden family secrets.
Thursday 22 May
Barn Theatre Club
Tuna Fish Eulogy by Lindsay Price
Albert was not a normal child. He liked nothing more than to sit and count his tins of tuna in his kitchen cupboard. One day, he was found dead and two tins were missing. Twelve years later, his grown up ghost has returned to interview his Mother and the babysitter to reconcile what happened. Did they do it, or was it suicide?
Theatre in the Square
Rubber-Ducking by Rosie Fiore-Burt (NP)
Do the things that led us to fall in love ultimately divide us? And can one small duck save a marriage in crisis?
HD&OS
Double Acts: A Flock of Tigers by John Finnemore
We are on a train in 1934. Edmund – an English gentleman and father, is unable to use his imagination, until he is helped to do so by eccentric American woman Dolorosa.
Friday 23 May
The Players’ Theatre (Wales)
Retribution or Madness by Gabe Torrens (NP)
A psychological thriller that is tense and complicated, full of twists and turns. Only two characters, but who wins?
Woodhouse Players
12hr Life by Robert Scott
Samantha and Dylan are strangers who meet at a café in a railway station. They are waiting for different trains, which will take them to places that they don’t want to be. They seem to have nothing in common apart from the fact that they both know this will be a day of their lives that will be wasted – time they will never get back.
What transpires over the next 12 hours sees them discover more about themselves and their hopes for the future.
4 Door Theatre
A Short Holiday from My Life by Philip Eley &
Beanie Richardson
What if you could step away from your life, just for a little while, and no one would even notice you’d gone? A Short Holiday From My Life is a darkly tender, thought-provoking drama that follows three strangers who discover a mysterious service offering exactly that: a temporary escape. Witty, moving, and quietly revolutionary, this one-act play explores the demands of everyday life and of being everything to everyone—and the quiet liberation of being seen.
Saturday 24 May (7pm)
Brightlight Theatre
Songkeeper by Jamie Lakritz
As the stars begin to vanish from the night sky and darkness encroaches, two men embark on a desperate mission to save their island community. Ambert, an idealistic young lamplighter, believes he can reignite the heavens. Provolov, a blind and embittered sailor, reluctantly returns to the sea, haunted by the ghosts of his past. As secrets surface and faith falters, the shadows of their history threaten to extinguish their hope. When the light fades, what will they cling to—and what will it cost?
HD&OS
Double Acts: English for Pony-Lovers by John Finnemore
In a small-town bar in modern-day Germany British northerner Lorna attempts to give German woman Elke an English language lesson. What could possibly go wrong?
Welwyn Drama Festival 