Butterfly Effect

Butterfly Effect

Twisted Willow Theatre, in partnership with WRiTEON, recently produced a fully-staged play that was shown at the Corpus Playroom between Wednesday 25th May and Saturday 4th June.

The Production

Wait … what has just happened? Oh.

In the time it takes a butterfly to flap its wings, whole lives fall apart. We collide or even just brush against each other and in that moment, we cause immense changes. Changes that have practical, legal, emotional, relational or societal consequences which no one could have predicted. With each decision we make, we change the world which, in turn, changes ourselves.

Imogen and Jack are spending a Saturday morning in the park with their daughter Sarah who is going off to university soon. There’s cracks in the family relationships. Meanwhile, Ben is having a hard time coping with his loved one’s depression and is putting his own job at risk. At the same time, Melissa struggles being a single parent with only her friend Clare to confide in. But in a blink of an eye, their worlds are turned upside down by a terrible accident.

Do accidents really happen? Or is everything someone’s responsibility? Could all tragedies be avoided? Unlikely.

But once a tragedy does happen, what remains? What is it that made us who we are and how much of ourselves can we hold on to after an accident that split our lives open?

Butterfly Effect is a collaboratively written piece by local playwrights who have been challenged to explore cause and effect via a new dramaturgical approach. This innovative production is being brought to you by WRiTEON in partnership with Twisted Willow Theatre.

The Cast

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Directed by Richard McNally, the cast was as follows:

Imogen– Suzanne Emerson
Jack– Declan Lynch
Sarah– Emma Von Schreiber
Melissa– Amber-Page Moss
Clare– Tamsin Baty
Ben– Max Digby Carpenter
Beth- Saskia van Ryneveld
Lawyer– David John
Pete– Colin Simpson

The Writing Process

The collaborative process by which the play has been created (led by Dramaturge Kim Komljanec) started with a playwriting workshop with 25 writers:

Butteryfly-effect-writters

Inspired by the central scene of this new play written by Kim, the writers were then given two weeks to write scenes of their own. Ten of these scenes were then chosen to be used in the final production. The writers of the chosen scenes were:

Melanie Taylor, James Stedman, Richard Peoples, Rachel Mariner, Philip Webb Gregg, David Lambert, Trish Rawson, Sue Whitney and Julia Bolden.