Emilio Iannucci, Rosie Gray, Dino Kelly, Saffron Coomber in Old Bridge at the Bush Theatre. Image by Marc Brenner.
‘One day all you care about is music, fashion, and boys. The next day there’s no food. Piece by piece your world starts to change so you change with it.’
Mostar, Yugoslavia, 1988. Mili, a boy from out of town, dives from the famous Old Bridge. Mina, a local girl, watches. As he falls, she begins falling for him.
Mostar, Bosnia, 1992. In a town of growing divisions, Mina and Mili never doubt that their future lies together. But nor can they imagine the dangers that future will bring.
This love story is a bold, fresh and contemporary take on real events. An epic story exploring the impact of a war that Europe forgot and the love and loss of those who lived through it.
Winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize, Old Bridge is a beautiful, heart-wrenching play by British-Bosnian writer Igor Memic.
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Old Bridge Pre-Show Information
★★★★ “VIVID” WhatsOnStage
★★★★ “A STRIKING DEBUT” Evening Standard
★★★★★ “FIVE STUNNING CENTRAL PERFORMANCES”
The Upcoming
★★★★ “POWERFUL AND MOVING” The Reviews Hub
★★★★ “POIGNANT” Broadway World
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Igor Memic is originally from Mostar. He grew up in London after leaving Yugoslavia in 1992 and studied at the University of Liverpool and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Old Bridge marks his professional debut.
Lois trained in Stage Management at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Previous credits include Game of Love and Chance (Arcola); A Christmas Carol (Goblin Theatre); Brassed Off (Aberystwyth Arts Centre). Bush credits include: Old Bridge, Harm, Invisible.
Papatango is a multi-award-winning new writing company which provides pathways into theatre, especially playwriting, for people who might otherwise be at risk of cultural exclusion. Every year Papatango’s free opportunities provide training, production, publication and funding for over 4000 grassroots theatre-makers in every region of the UK and Ireland. Artists given their breakthrough with Papatango have gone on to win BAFTAs, OffWestEnd, Critics’ Circle, Royal National Theatre Foundation and Alfred Fagon awards and be nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award, The Stage Debut Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, while Papatango productions have won OffWestEnd awards, toured nationally and transferred worldwide. Papatango’s motto is simple: all you need is a story. www.papatango.co.uk
Selma Dimitrijevic is a director and writer and artistic director of Greyscale. Her directing credits include Baroness And The Pig (Shaw Festival), joey (gobscure/Greyscale), Hedda Gabler, This is Not a Love Story (Northern Stage – also writer), The Gamblers (Dundee Rep – also writer), Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone (Almeida /UK tour/International tour – also writer), Dead To Me (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/UK tour), A Prayer (Almeida/Northern Stage/Hull Truck Theatre – also writer), A Beginning, A Middle And An End (Tron Theatre/tour), Harmless Creatures (Hull Truck Theatre), Tonight David Ireland Will Lecture, Dance and Box (Oran Mor/tour), What Would Judas Do? (Almeida/Northern Stage), and Incident at the Border, Cyrano de Bergerac and Waterproof (Òran Mór); and as a dramaturg, Sting’s musical The Last Ship (UK and USA tour). Further writing credits in opera and theatre include Berenice, To See The Invisible, Dr. Frankenstein, Night Time, Game Theory, and Re:Union. Her plays have been translated and performed around the world. She is Jerwood Artistic Adviser and Unlimited Ally.
Tabitha is a production manager for theatre and opera, with a particular passion for new writing. She trained at LAMDA and is now a production manager with eStage.
Her credits include Connections 2022, Barrier(s) (National Theatre); Red Pitch, Overflow (Bush Theatre); Old Bridge (Bush Theatre/Papatango – winner of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre); Moreno (Theatre503); The 4th Country (Park Theatre); and The Dancing Master (Buxton Opera House).
