The Mushroom Pickers, published at last!

Nine years after it was first staged, my play The Mushroom Pickers has finally been published - by Samuel French. This play, winner of the 2005 SCDA Playwriting Competition, ran for three weeks at the Southwark Playhouse in 2006, and starred Catherine Cusack as Laura, Michael Culkin as her father Philip, Sam Kenyon as Tom, John Kirk as Frank and Caroline John (now deceased) as Nancy. It was directed by the brilliant Svetlana Dimcovic and received excellent reviews all-round, particularly from Kieron Quirke of the Evening Standard. Svetlana directed the play with a small budget and many of the forest and wild-mushroom scenes were, I remember, quite magical. The play received its American premiere in 2009, when it was staged at the Gene Frankel Theatre, with Maxine Linehan in the role of Laura. It has been lovely to revisit this play in recent months as I prepared it for publication. Also, published is Leopoldville, which won the 2010 Papatango New Writing Prize and was staged in London in 2010 (at the Tristan Bates Theatre). What is really exciting about the publication of these two earlier plays is that they now form a ‘set’ with Belfast Girls, which was published this May. Now, there are three plays with some kind of connection to the Irish border! They can be ordered from Samuel French direct, or in most bookshops. If you live in the northeast of Ireland they are currently on sale at Roe River Books, Park Street, Dundalk. I hope to announce a new reading of Belfast Girls - and launch of the three plays – in Dundalk, soon.

Meanwhile, I am coming close to a final draft of my novel and hope to be submitting a draft of this to my very patient agent in the coming weeks!

Here are links to ordering the texts of The Mushroom Pickers and other plays:

http://www.samuelfrench-london.co.uk/p/58636/mushroom-pickers-the

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