Finalist 2015-16

Sam Holcroft

Play: Rules for Living

Sam Holcroft

Synopsis: Everyone creates their own coping strategies or rules for living. But what happens when an extended family gathers in the kitchen for a traditional Christmas and they each follow those rules, rigidly?
As long-held mechanisms for survival are laid bare, even Mum, who’s been preparing this lunch since last January, becomes embroiled. Time-honoured rivalries and resentments will out. Accusations fly, relationships deconstruct, the rules take over

Cast Breakdown: Main: 3 Male 3 Female

Set/Costume Requirements: The entire play is set in a contemporary family kitchen / dining room.

Website: n/a

UK Agent: Mel Kenyon, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Ltd - http://www.casarotto.co.uk

US Agent: Antje Oegel, A O International - http://www.aoiagency.com

Play Service: The play is published by Nick Hern Books - https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/Book/1709/Rules-for-Living.html

Bio: Sam’s plays include Rules for Living at the National Theatre; The Wardrobe for National Theatre Connections; Edgar & Annabel, part of the Double Feature season in the Paintframe at the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse, Edinburgh; Pink, part of the Women, Power and Politics season at the Tricycle; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009). In 2013, she wrote The House Taken Over, a libretto for opera, adapted from Cortázar, for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Académie Européenne de Musique. She received the Tom Erhardt Award in 2009, was the Pearson Writer-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre, 2009–10, and the Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio from 2013–14. In 2014, she received a Windham Campbell Prize for Literature in the drama category.

 

Rules for Living

Maggie Service (Carrie)

Maggie Service (Carrie), Stephen Mangan (Adam),
John Rogan (Francis), Deborah Findlay (Edith) and Miles Jupp (Matthew)

Stephen Mangan (Adam)

Rules for Living at the National Theatre, London. Photos by: Simon Annand