The Criterion Theatre, Earlsdon - Event - a performance of: Springboard Festival 2025

Monday 12^th May. 'A Broader Community' Running Order

Spoken Word/Dramatic Reading (60 mins) 'Unreliable Memoirs' by Coventry Vision (was Coventry Resource Centre for the Blind)

New writing from the Creative Writing Group at Coventry Vision. This is the latest live collaboration between Coventry Vision writers and Criterion Theatre actors.They will perform a range of pieces: from poetry to comedy, from prose to moving memoir.

As this varied and entertaining programme demonstrates, while the writers all share sight loss, it doesn't define them - or their work.

Music: (25 minutes) Nowhere Club in collaboration with poet Amy Rugg

Local performance poet, Amy Rugg, joins creative forces with the fabulous Nowhere Club’s Lewis Holmes and Adam Yarnall to present a unique collaboration of beautiful double acoustic guitars interwoven with entrancing original spoken word and photography. Reflecting on themes of nature in urban settings, family relationships and her life as a dual citizen of the US/UK, she will also be supported by gifted saxophonist, Jan Nightingale, to create an inspirational set that celebrates the joyful thresholds of music and poetry.

In their own words, Nowhere Club are 'an accoustic-ish duo. Jingly jangly, twingly twangly folky harmonies". Coventrians Lewis Holmes and Adam Yarnell have been gigging all over the place this year and putting together their first studio album. Their multi-layered melodies and harmonies combine with witty, sometimes political and always heartfelt lyrics. These thoroughly nice chaps with guitars will be collaborating in this set with local poet Amy Rugg for a truly unique performance.

Amy Rugg is a writer, performance poet, and cherished collector of tall tales. A champion of Coventry’s history and culture, she was commissioned to perform at Coventry’s Positive Images and Refugee Week festivals and is a steady regular at Fire&Dust’s open mics. Her work was published in a Spirit of Fire & Dust anthology by Allographic Press. She enjoys experimenting with the thresholds of poetry and prose and her dramatized poem commemorating the bombing of Coventry Cathedral featured in the Springboard Festival in 2024 and at the Criterion takeover of the Talisman Fringe Event 'Faith and Hope' in July 2024. A dual citizen of the US/UK, she enjoys writing and performing from the perspective of a relative outsider.

Interval

Drama (20 minutes): 'No Place Like Home' by Alexandra Taylor, Directed by Cassandra O'Floresca, Cast: - Bettina- Ania Cummins, Adler- Manuela Palfi, Applicant- Yasmin Hashemy, Guard-Timothy East

In this absurdist piece, set in a dystopian near future, Adler baffles Bettina with red tape and bureaucracy as she tries to navigate her way through what defines citizenship of a country.

Drama (35 minutes): 'Through A Stained Glass Darkly' by Anne-marie Greene, Directed by Pete Gillam, Cast: Kelly Davidson, Lilian McGrath, Anne-marie Greene

Madeleine, Roberta and Edith have been friends for years. They are women trying to do their jobs, but they’ve only been allowed in since 1994 and don’t a lot of people let them know it? While they try to serve their congregations faithfully, life is just harder when you’re a woman priest. Clerical robes don’t fit well round busts and baby bumps and having to make the cakes and sort the flowers conflicts with getting on and writing that killer sermon.
On the afternoon of July 14th 2014, the three women get together on the occasion of the historic vote on women bishops. As they share their experiences, we come to understand how they have coped with the difficulty of their situation -the laughs, the joys, the heartbreak, the suffering-and to realise what still makes it all just about worthwhile.
A decade after the date of the vote on women’s bishops, this piece of original theatre utilises transcripts from academic research interviews conducted with 40 clergywomen in the Church of England.