Vivienne Franzmann’s first play, Mogadishu, received rave reviews in Manchester and London in 2011. Her new piece, PESTS, is the first offering of Inis Nua Theatre Company’s 2014/15 reading series. Tonight only at 7pm at the Off-Broad Street Theater. Tickets are $10.
Pink and Rolly are two sisters from a grim pocket of London. Their love for each other has taken them though drug addiction, prison time, childhood sexual abuse and mental illness. Can that love survive Rolly’s escape into a better future?
PESTS grew out of Franzmann’s work as resident playwright at Clean Break, a women’s theater company set up in 1979 by two women prisoners who believed that theater could bring the hidden stories of imprisoned women to a wider audience. Franzmann undertook five residencies in women’s prisons, secure mental health and community settings, experiences she used to develop the play and get inside the world of PESTS.
The reading is part of a busy week for Inis Nua. It is followed by a spy-themed musical fundraiser, the Craicdown Under Cover, on Friday, November 21. Then the company provides a free peek at Carmilla: Video Nasty, an original work in progress, on Sunday, November 23. [Off-Broad Street Theater, 1636 Sansom Street] November 17, 2014; inisnuatheatre.org.