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Lisa Parry

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Lisa Parry is a playwright, based in Cardiff. Her work has been staged by leading new writing companies in the UK and USA. She has been shortlisted for various awards, including Theatre Uncut's Political Playwriting Award,[1] the BBC Audio Awards[2] and her drama NOT was named one of the RSC's 37 Plays.[3]

Career in theatre, audio and film

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Parry studied playwriting at the University of Birmingham and read English Language and Literature at Exeter College, Oxford.[4] In 2011, she co-founded Agent 160 Theatre Company[5] and co-produced two of its shows: a run of short plays by female playwrights in Cardiff, London and Glasgow, and also a series of female monologues at Wales Millennium Centre. The company was set up in response to the statistic that only 17 per cent of plays across the UK are written by women.[6] The company closed in 2014.

In 2016, Parry co-founded Illumine Theatre Company with director Zoë Waterman. The company's first production – of Parry's play 2023 – opened to rave reviews in October 2018. Wales Arts Review described it as "wonderfully written...it tackles a sensitive topic with intelligence and creativity. It is funny without being too light, and emotive without being too heavy."[7] Art Scene in Wales called it "a truly thought-provoking piece... It is certainly a play that will stay with its audience far after its end". Buzz Magazine described the piece as "a morality tale for the Black Mirror generation",[8] and Get the Chance described it as "[a] stunning new play... Lisa Parry's script is crisp and lucid. I propose that it is in the running for best Welsh play of 2018".[9] The company has since gone on to produce two audio dramas: TREMOLO, for which Welsh actor Gareth Elis won the Marc Beeby Award for Best Debut Performance;[10] and DEUCE.[11]

Among the companies that have staged Parry's work are: Dirty Protest, The Miniaturists, PopUp Theatrics and The Sherman. Her work has been produced at: The Barbican, The Other Room, The Sherman, Wales Millennium Centre, Chapter Arts, Theatre 503, The Arcola, TACT Studio (Broadway, NYC), The Arches, Bridewell Theatre London, Martin E Segal Theatre (NYC). In 2019, it was announced that Parry's The Merthyr Stigmatist will be staged at the Sherman in Cardiff in 2020 as part of artistic director Joe Murphy's first season, as a co-production with Theatre Uncut.[12] It was called one of "the theatre shows you won't want to miss" by BBC News and praised as "surely 2020's best premise for a play".[13] Production was delayed owing to the covid pandemic and it was released digitally, with the Guardian calling it "theatrical magic from the Valleys"[14] and Theatre Weekly saying "Parry proves to be an urgent and contemporary voice".[15]

Parry's short film "Inside the Piano Shop" features in The Impact, a collaborative film, released in 2022, composed of 37 short films from around the world.[16]

Speaking and writing

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Parry has also worked as a news journalist, her work appearing in regional and national publications; however, she left because she "couldn't shake off the fact I wasn't telling stories in the way I wanted to. They felt constrained inside a formula".[17] She has however continued to contribute to various online and print journals and has also written for the Guardian and contributed to BBC Radio 4, discussing the arts scene in Wales. Parry has also spoken extensively on various panels regarding feminism and theatre and also science and theatre, notably giving a talk for TEDx in Cardiff. In 2019 and 2020, Parry was named as one of Wales Arts Review's 100 Women of Wales on Twitter.[18]

References

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  1. ^ "Theatre Uncut — Award". Theatre Uncut. February–March 2019.
  2. ^ BBC, Radio 4 (January 2023). "BBC Radio 4 - the 2023 shortlist".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ RSC, 37 Plays (March 2023). "RSC Announces 37 Plays".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Exon (PDF).
  5. ^ "Agent 160 Theatre Company: About". Agent 160 Theatre Company. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  6. ^ "Agent 160- Interview with Lisa Parry". Quench. 4 October 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  7. ^ Edmonds, Taylor (5 October 2018). "Theatre | 2023 (Illumine)". Wales Arts Review.
  8. ^ 2023: Stage Review, Buzz Magazine, 11 October 2018
  9. ^ Barrington, Roger (7 October 2018). "Review of 2023 at Chapter, Cardiff". Get The Chance. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  10. ^ "Gareth Elis wins big at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2023".
  11. ^ "Deuce: A new bilingual audio drama from the creators of TREMOLO". 3 July 2023.
  12. ^ "News : Sherman Theatre". www.shermantheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  13. ^ "BBC News".
  14. ^ "The Merthyr Stigmatist review". The Guardian. 28 May 2021.
  15. ^ "Review: The Merthyr Stigmatist".
  16. ^ "The Impact (2022) - IMDb".
  17. ^ "Get to know: Playwright Lisa Parry". illuminetheatre. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  18. ^ "Women of Wales on Twitter".
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