Preview: Butterfly on tour

Play from Teesside playwright challenges mental health perceptions

Butterfly

Thursday 9^th March 2017 - Arts Centre Washington

Tuesday 21^st March 2017 - Newcastle Northern Stage

A play about the stigma of mental health written by a North East Disabled playwright is heading out on tour.

Butterfly has been written and directed by Teesside-based playwright and artistic director Vici Wreford Sinnott, and is a humorous yet dark one woman drama that challenges stereotypes.

The central character, who is named Beatrice and played by actress Jacqueline Phillips, sits in isolation waiting for the results of her compulsory mental health assessment.

She is joined by Boudica and Butterfly who both help her to travel in time to revisit important historic developments in the stigma of mental health past, and also to revisit sites in her own past, reminding her of who she is – a Bay City Rollers and David Bowie superfan.

Vici is a playwright, disability rights campaigner and artistic director of disabled led theatre company Little Cog based in Saltburn. She is also the Agent of Change for the Cultural Shift project based at ARC in Stockton-On-Tees, and wrote Butterfly to challenge people’s perceptions about disabled people making contemporary work in the arts.

Speaking about the play, Vici said: “Butterfly is not about suffering from, or surviving, a condition. It is about history, stigma, about misunderstandings and misrepresentations. It is about setting the record straight.”

The play returns to ARC after an initial preview performance last year.

Running time: 1hr 15min (no interval)
Recommended age: 14+ (contains strong language)

Butterfly will open at ARC on Thursday 26 January and will then tour at the following venues:

31 Jan & 1 Feb - Stratford Circus, London

2 Feb - Lincoln Drill Hall

7 Feb - Exeter Phoenix

9 Feb - The Old Fire Station, Oxford

15 Feb - Harrogate Theatre

9 Mar - Arts Centre Washington 7.30pm
Tickets £8.50 / £6.00 (conc)

This performance will be BSL interpreted.

Tickets available online from http://www.artscentrewashington.co.uk/production-details.aspx?id=910

16 Mar - Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, Halifax

21 Mar - Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne 7.45pm

Tickets £ 10 / £8 concessions

Box Office: 0191 230 5151 or online from http://northernstage.co.uk/whats-on/butterfly

25 Apr - Canada Water Culture Space, London

26 Apr - Theatre in the Mill, Bradford