Act 2: Archive

Founded in 2011 by Richard Garton and Gareth Morgan, the company began by staging small-scale readings of work in non-theatre community venues before developing their regular writers’ night, Write Club. Act 2 began in December 2011 with a rehearsed reading of Renfield by Marty Ross and was followed by sharings of Truth's Vision by Lily Lowe-Myers and Robyn Cooper in March and Hugh Dichmont's Yankee Zulu in July. In September 2012 Gareth left Nottingham to study for a Masters and the project went on a one year hiatus, restarting in September 2013 with start of Write Club, originally at the Organ Grinder pub on Canning Circus.

The posters from our first three Act 2s: Renfield, Truth's Vision and Yankee Zulu.

In 2014 Act 2 staged three more rehearsed readings of new work from Nottingham, Derby and Northampton by playwrights Hugh Dichmont (Bad Blood), Emily Holyoake (Stasis) and Subika Anwar (The Visit) as part of the neat14 festival. These readings were performed by local professional actors in the Neville Studio at Nottingham Playhouse. Richard also left Act 2 in 2014 when he started a new job working as an English teacher in Taiwan.

The programme images from the three neat14 readings: Bad Blood, The Visit and Stasis.

Since January 2015, we have facilitated the Monday night Write Club at Nottingham Playhouse which has helped develop work collaboratively with writers from across the East Midlands. We also helped programme scripts at Derby Theatre's Playshuffle events in November 2015 and February 2016 - plus another 'Shuffle at Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester in April 2016, and Nottingham Playhouse's first Scratch Night with all three writers having developed their work with us.

The publicity images from the three FONT readings: The Big Hat, Measuring Us and Absence of Consequence.

In April 2015 Act 2 ran a script call-out, No Lie Notts, for short monologues that comment on Nottingham, the people who live there and what maybe normally goes unsaid. The three winning scripts: Absence of Consequence by Jack Burrows, The Big Hat by Martha Patterson and Measuring Us by Kayleigh Phillips were performed as part of FONT Fest.

The image for the Brexit Write Club Response at Nottingham Playhouse.

In June 2016, we staged our first Write Club Response with 7 ten-minute plays on the theme of Brexit as part of the neat 16 festival at Nottingham Playhouse. These were Escape To Euroland by Ian Collinson, Stateless by Gary Berezin, Send Them Back by Keith Large, Whatever by Francesca Lees, 'Dis Functional Family by Richard Garton, Motherland by Kayleigh Phillips and UKexit by Hugh Dichmont - directed by Gareth Morgan and Beth Shouler.