In this Box of Goodies: MNeSTIS THEATRE PRESENTS WILDWOOD written by Laura Cox!

What do you get when you mix a wonderful group of actors, a marvellous piece of theatre, an atmospheric venue and a little bit of Welsh... You get an audience member with an extreme case of the tingles that's what!

And that audience member with the tingles just so happened to be me (And everybody else in the venue no doubt!) because I had the absolute pleasure of writing the piece. Hearing people singing my poetry and speaking my words was truly wonderful and made the hairs on my neck stand up on end. The whole experience, from the writing process to seeing the performance live, has made me really want to push myself with my writing and get more of it out there.

The play ran for two nights in September in The Old Christ Church in Waterloo Liverpool. It was the MA performance of two good friends aka artistic geniuses aka Emily Collins and Philip McAllister from Uni. They'd approached me earlier in the year about helping them with some writing and I just couldn't say no.

Phil

Now to let you all know what I'm even on about, here's an extract from the program and a few pics of the performance:

'Wildwood is a choral work of movement and song exploring ancient British traditions. MNeSTIS theatre fuses an investigation of voice work with eastern styles of physical actor training. Drawing on the ancient mystery of the female voice, the work examines the notion of transformation through song. Through a re-imagining of the Welsh myth Blodeuwedd from the third branch of The Mabinogion, the performance is inspired by Blodeuwedd's journey and loss of identity through this tale, created through magic from the flowers of the oak, broom and meadowsweet for her husband Llew, Blodeuwedd finds life in the love of another man. As her betrayal torments her, she and Gronw plot to kill Llew as a sacrifice for their lives together. However their plans are destroyed and as a consequence she is bitterly punished to a life of desolation. Through his frustration Llew transforms Blodeuwedd into an owl, the solitary bird of the night, to never show her face in the light of day. Through fragmentations of the tale, the memory of Blodeuwedd is explored, weaving images of the voice, body and soul of the sacred to reconnect with our cultural identity. Inspired by ancient pagan traditions, join us in invoking the mysteries of the past as we investigate the act of transformation from a woman of flowers to the life of an owl.'