A Beginning, A Middle and An End

Greyscale in association with Stellar Quines present
A BEGINNING, A MIDDLE AND AN END

A beginning, a middle and an end, that’s how things go, provided you start in the right place.
For Evelyn and Ade time passes; sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes all at once, but always away from what was and relentlessly towards what will be. 
Their little family of two, of four, of three, of one, not necessarily in that order, travels together towards a new beginning, or an old ending. Or both. Only time will tell.

Funny, beautiful, human and wise this is Sylvia Dow’s first play.
Sylvia is not a young writer.
Sylvia is 73.

Director: Selma Dimitrijevic
Designer: Oliver Townsend
Animator/Illustrator: Ana Marques
Lighting Design: Mark Howland
Composer: Scott Twynholm

Cast
Kane - Andrew Gourlay
Ade - Jon Foster
Evelyn - Emilie Patry

Stage Manager: Fana Cioban
Assistant Director: John May

Production funded by Creative Scotland.

About Sylvia Dow:

Born and educated in Edinburgh, Sylvia Dow has lived a life in thrall to the arts and to theatre in particular. Her theatre obsessed mother appointed her as play-going companion from a very early age, her father having proved a unsuitable partner for these outings - plays bored him to death and he often fell asleep ten minutes into the first act. So Sylvia was subject to a wide variety of theatrical experiences, some utterly unsuitable for a 7 year old, and fell head over heels in love with theatre, plays and actors, a love that has persisted all her life.

But despite training as an actor, and a working life spent entirely in the arts as teacher, education officer, arts bureaucrat, and consultant, the opportunity to work in a total theatre setting never arose.

At the age of 70 she took the decision to do something that would allow her to talk and think about theatre intensively. She signed up, a little nervously, for a Masters course in dramaturgy and playwriting at Glasgow University.

The outcomes of this decision were surprising. She discovered the heady feeling of liberation which writing can bring. She found that being over 70 could inform her work in terms of a long life lived, but did not have to define her work. And she found that people were interested in her voice, what she had to say. That this interest could lead to her first play being produced, directed, toured, was the biggest and best surprise of all.

Now that, at a late age, she can call herself a playwright, she continues to work at the craft currently working on a three-act play about the nature of belief.

Sylvia has also guest-started our Greyscale blog (slightly neglected since) .... http://greyscaletheatre.wordpress.com/

Big THANK YOU goes to Phillip Howard and Linda McLean for their wisdom and support, Glasgow University, Traverse theatre, The Fenton Arts Trust, Creative Scotland, everyone at Stellar Quines, Hull Truck, Tim Reed, Kim Beverage, Gary Collins, Meg Fraser, Daniel Sawka, Keith Flemming and Lewis Howden. Thank you all.