Bush Retrospective January will be Sharman MacDonald’s When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout, which premiered at the Bush in 1984.
When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout was Sharman MacDonald’s first play. Set in 1950s Scotland, it charts the sexual misadventures and misconceptions of Fiona, growing up with her repressive mother and best friend Vari. Sharman MacDonald won the Evening Standard Drama Award for the Most Promising Playwright in 1984.
This rehearsed reading of an extract from the play will be followed by a panel discussion where Sharman will be joined by Margaret Perry, writer of Paradise Now!, which has its world premiere this December at the Bush.
Cast: Lesley Harcourt as Moraj, Kane Feagan as Fiona, Ra’eesah Kai as Vari
Director: Alice Fitzgerald
Stage Manager: Maja Lach
Guests: Sharman MacDonald and Margaret Perry
Alice Fitzgerald is a theatre director and dramaturg. She trained on the MA Directing course at Mountview and since graduating her focus has been working with new writing. Alice was nominated for the ‘Best Director’ Stage Debut Award in 2022. Her recent directing credits include: Purple Snowflakes and Titty Wanks (Abbey Theatre, Dublin / Royal Court), Bonfire R&D (Departure Lounge, Derby Theatre) and short audio play Slippy Maggie (Bitter Pill Theatre). Her dramaturgy credits include: Dots (McAulay Studio, Hong Kong Arts Center) and working as the resident Dramaturg on Maiden Speech Festival (Tristan Bates).
Playwright and novelist Sharman Macdonald was born in Glasgow in 1951. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, she graduated in 1972 and moved to London where she acted with the 7:84 theatre company and at the Royal Court Theatre. While she was working as an actress, she wrote her first play, When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout (1985), first performed at the Bush Theatre in 1984. The play won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.
Her other plays include The Brave, commissioned by the Bush Theatre; When We Were Women, first performed at the Cottesloe Theatre; All Things Nice (1991), commissioned by the English Stage Company and performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1991; The Winter Guest (1998), commissioned and directed by Alan Rickman and filmed in 1997 starring Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law; and After Juliet (1999), a sequel to Romeo and Juliet dealing with Rosalind’s story after the death of Juliet, commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT National Connections Scheme for young people. Her play, The Girl with Red Hair (2003), premiered at Traverse, Edinburgh in 2003, transferring to London.
She is also the author of two novels, The Beast (1986) and Night Night (1988), and wrote the screenplay for Wild Flowers (1989) for Channel 4 Television and the BBC Radio play Sea Urchins (1998). A further radio play, Gladly My Cross Eyed Bear, was broadcast in 1999. She wrote the libretto to Hey Persephone!, performed at Aldeburgh with music by Deirdre Gribbin.
Sharman Macdonald has two children, and is married to the actor Will Knightley. Her latest work is wartime drama When We Were Lovers, performed at the Orange Tree Theatre in September 2015
