|  | Alison Carr - Writer's Profile
Alison Carr made her debut as a writer with the comedy-drama Breakfast Not Included that was first performed at the University of Nottingham's New Theatre in November 2000. The show went on to entertain audiences at C Venues at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The following year Alison returned with Chameleon, which enjoyed a successful four-week run at the Fringe.
 | | Alison Carr |
As well as writing and directing both productions, Alison used the latter to launch Breakfast Productions, a theatre company dedicated to presenting high quality new writing and acting talent. As well as writing for the stage and radio, Alison has been an Arts Reviewer for a local newspaper in Newcastle since February 2003.
Alison has also achieved success as a director, producer and stage manager, working extensively with the New Theatre on productions including Once a Catholic and Habeas Corpus. In 2001 she co-founded the New Theatre Touring Company, an initiative that strives to take theatre outside the auditorium and into libraries, halls of residence and outdoor spaces. Last year Alison worked with Live theatre as Assistant Director for the production Double Lives. Written by Sean O'Brien and Julia Darling the double bill of one-act plays featured Trevor Fox and Charlie Hardwick and Darling's contribution, Attachments, is currently being developed as a TV drama after been given a Hothouse Award from Northern Film & Media.
Alison also has experience as an actress, her credits including The Wizard of Oz, Grease and Guys and Dolls and with the Newcastle based Encore Theatre Company, the Northern Area Amateur Premiere of Return to the Forbidden Planet and the role of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. With the New Theatre she performed Fever as Peggy Lee in the Ocean nightclub, while in Edinburgh Alison featured, from time to time, in Breakfast Not Included and recently she made her London debut reading her monologue Yellow. Alison currently lives in Newcastle having graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2002 with a degree in English Studies. For further information about Breakfast Production's previous or upcoming projects, please contact Alison Carr at: breakfastproductions@hotmail.com. ------ Rachel Fletcher - Writer's Profile
Time of Call is Rachel Fletcher's first play performed for radio, though not the only one she has written. Even before becoming involved in script writing at university she has been writing since her teens. At age 14 Rachel was a winner in the national Carousel London poetry competition, which was open to students of secondary age. Her entry entitled 'You' was published in a book of the winning entries, shortly after the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.
 | | Rachel Fletcher |
At university, her poem 'Ever after, Ever after' was also a prize-winning entry for the ASLA University Writing Competition. It was written in memory of a close friend who died of meningitis when they were both aged seventeen. As a student she was also delighted to secure a place on a creative writing module at the University of Nottingham, and was even happier when she found out that she had achieved a 1st for the work she had submitted. Her portfolio included writing that ranged from poetry and prose written when Rachel was in her mid-teens too much more recent pieces, including a CD recording of Time of Call and a copy of the original script.
One of the written pieces was an extract of her account as a teacher, journalist and traveller in Ghana. Her first experience of writing professionally came from three weeks of voluntary work at The Statesman, a national Ghanaian broad sheet that was published every two days. For this paper she wrote regular features on events topical at the time, such as a Ghanaian Teen Personality Competition and the instalment of a new tribal chief.
After her gap year Rachel went on to read English at the University of Nottingham, where she wrote opinion pieces for Impact, the award winning university magazine. In 2003 she was elected as an Arts Editor that involved writing, commissioning, and editing reviews for theatre, books and exhibitions. After a week of work experience at the Nottingham Evening Post, she was invited back to work there each week up until her graduation. In her final year Rachel was team leader for one of two writing teams that wrote Lenton Boulevard, student radio's premier soap opera. This show won Best Entertainment Award at the Radio 1 Student Radio Awards 2003.
Rachel's writing since leaving university has taken a more professional turn, as she is currently training to become a journalist, but art for art's sake has not been abandoned. At present she works for the Enfield Gazette and Advertiser, at the news desk and in the arts department, while training for her NCTJ Pre-entry certificate at Harlow College. Learning to be a news writer has not been limiting - rather, Rachel finds that she loves training to master a new style of writing and is finding this sort of discipline very useful in how she approaches her own private and creative work. ------ Charlotte Cooper - Writer's Profile
Much of Charlotte's inspiration and support comes from her creative involvement with the London based Short and Girlie Productions. Since its birth in September 1999, Short and Girlie have developed into London's newest and most active gay-girl theatre group. The company concentrates on developing theatre as well as providing theatre training for gay-girls. The company welcomes input from everyone, regardless of sexuality. For further information please visit www.shortandgirlie.com. |
