WILT is going to be performed at the Lambeth Fringe this year by Segments Company. I have caught up with them before the Lambeth Fringe begins to find out more.

Name of show and Venue details.

WILT by Segments Company.

13-14 October at the Bread and Roses Theatre.

 

What was the inspiration behind your show?

WILT was written by company member Jazz after her first big experience with loss. After the death of her grandad, she saw a flower wilting in her room, and the image of the rose reminded her of death, leading to the symbolic imagery of death and grief that forms much of the foundation of the play. She felt the five stages of grief formed a compelling construct of a play— five scenes for five stages. Her research into this enabled her to experiment and push the limits of the story, characters and dynamics, and how grief permeates all aspects of the lives of all it touches.

 

How long has your production been in progress?

WILT has been an on-and-off project for three and a half years. We’re currently on our sixth draft— though it’s looking likely to become seventh during our upcoming rehearsals!

 

Where are planning on taking the play next?

We’ll be performing at the Camden Fringe in August, as well as at the Bath Theatre Royal in October. We’re hoping to do a South-West tour where we can also deliver workshops about grief to go in hand with the play— connecting with local grief charities and providing the space for people to see something of themselves and their grief within the show. We’d love to consider a national tour afterwards—we feel WILT tells an important story about two different perspectives on death and grief that people will be able to relate to, and would love to take this show up and down the country to tell it.

 

What would you like audiences to take away from your show?

Bittersweet. Time doesn’t heal. Grief is different for everyone. It is so unfair that someone can exist one day and not the next– there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but that light is still related to something terrible, so you need to let yourself feel, to keep living and figure out how to do it without them.

 

What are you looking forward to most about performing your show?

It’s a real emotional rollercoaster. It’s exciting to feel the audience take a breath in and be so present and immersed in a play. You feel everyone lean forward in a state of complete collective involvement. It’s so vulnerable and beautiful, and it’s incredible to have your work felt the way you wanted it to, and to give people the space to feel such heavy emotions through art.

 

Why did you choose your particular Fringe venue?

The Bread and Roses Theatre has a hugely rich history—it was where the Lambeth Fringe started, and has had a lot of amazing theatre pass through it, so we’re really excited to have our show there. It’s a beautifully intimate space—the small space will be a welcome challenge for our show, allowing the vulnerable nature of its story and characters to shine.

 

Which shows at the Fringe are you planning on watching?

Loads have caught our eye—we’re really eager to watch CLOUDS (created by Sule Selin Cicek), The Dying Wish (dir. Verônica Sarno, written Mauro Fazion), Moth(er…) (Unbound Dialogue Theatre Co.), and On The Thickness of Blood (201 Productions), to name a few.

 

Have you had any major hurdles to overcome to get this production on the stage?

As an emerging company, finances are our consistent hurdle. All people who have worked on this show have been unpaid, so there have been times where, as young working creatives, we have had to take a paid job and dip out of company work to do it and come back in. It’s been difficult to manage—in our last WILT run one of our actors had to film during tech—but we all buckled down and banded together and made it work. We’re putting a lot of focus now into our fundraising, and staying on top of our company finances.

 

What other productions have you previously been involved with?

WILT is our debut show as a company, but there have been a few different iterations of WILT in various Bristol venues, including a short run at Tobacco Factory Theatres. By the time of our Lambeth Fringe performances, we will have performed WILT at the Camden Fringe as well.

All of our company have been working recently on a variety of creative projects so it’s been great to come together to make this show happen. One company member has just made their directorial debut at Bristol Old Vic, we had someone perform in an RSC tour, and another company member work as cover ASM for a national tour of a new musical.

https://lambethfringe.com/events/wilt

Website

https://lambethfringe.com/events/wilt

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