Anne has been directing since summer 2015. Here is some information about the productions she has directed:

Flxxd

‘Flxxd’ (pronounced ‘Flood’), was shared at Hope Mill Theatre on June 29th at 2pm.

“Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish. Thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!”

This quote was used to provoke four feminist theatrical responses. ‘Flxxd’ was one of those pieces. A three-hander, written by Eleanor Cartmell, it was performed by Kate Benfield, Brianna Douglas and Marie Friend. The pieces were created and developed collaboratively over four weeks of workshops and rehearsals in central Manchester.

Thoroughly enjoyed the 4 pieces at today’s #UnseemlyWomen @hopemilltheatr1. A real tour de force of female talent on display! Insightful writing, great direction with wonderful performances. It was very refreshing to laugh at so many female in-jokes! Congrats to all involved.

— Jane Anderson CDG  (@JaneAndersonCDG) June 29, 2018

Produced in association with Hope Mill’s all-female production of Romeo & Juliet.

 

Hamlet – The Audio Version

Commissioned by Sherri Rabinowitz for the ‘Sherri’s Playhouse’ strand of her popular online podcasts, this abridged version of Hamlet utilised a trans-Atlantic cast to deliver a New Year’s Eve treat for a global audience. Over 41,000 downloads of the production have been made as of mid-January 2018.

You can listen to the production here

 

Murder at Warrabah House

Staged at venues across Greater Manchester from August to September 2017. This was the English premiere for this Australian play.

“I was never in any doubt as to which character was speaking … completely held my attention” from the four star North West End review.

There were also rave reactions from the audiences. The Friday night performance sold out and Sam Wilson, one of the writers of the play, travelled from Melbourne to see the production.

Rebecca Derrick played Hattie Parish, and embodied eight characters altogether, as Hattie recalled the tale of that fateful 1928 weekend at Warrabah House.

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A production staged at Buxton Fringe in July 2017.

An abridged script with multi-rolling meant the play was performed by six actors, with a running time of just over an hour.

“It is when we have the play within a play ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ put on by the ‘mechanicals’ to celebrate the wedding of the Duke and Queen … that the actors clearly start to enjoy themselves. … The audience loved it.” Buxton Fringe review

 

But John Hughes Said It Would Be OK…

In October 2016 The Unnamed Theatre Company presented an evening of vignettes, based around, and prompted by, the movies of John Hughes. Anne directed the production, and edited the audio used within the show.

There were ten pieces within the show, and they were all very different – from long pieces lasting around fifteen minutes, to very short pieces lasting less than a minute.

 

Hamlet

This production was first staged in April 2016, to tie-in with the global ‘Shakespeare 400’ celebrations. The July revival had some slight changes of cast, and the script was slightly amended, to create a story which focused on Hamlet’s grief and the choices that led him to exact his revenge for the death of his father.

More photographs taken during the rehearsal process for the revived production can be found here.

 

Bricks by Michael Rumney

Anne directed the rehearsed reading of this new play, in Studio Salford’s Autumn 2015 Development Week.

This was a brand new piece of writing, receiving its first airing before a public audience. A two-hander, that, on first draft had been written for four characters, this production was staged with the intention of providing more feedback to Michael, the writer.

 

The Fey

(Photographs by Marie-Louise Knight)

A play that looks ahead a little in time to a possible dystopian queer future: Bigotry and misunderstanding is on the rise, right-wing politicians act in the shadows to eradicate a new wave of ‘gay plague’ that has struck the world. As a group of friends see their lives stripped bare, will they fight back or go into hiding?