- January–February 2023
“You can't understand it, but I was born to be a queen. And I wasn't raised I was built: I was built to be this thing, and now they're killing me for it.”
Spoiled, pretty, rich – Marie Antoinette has it all. Except her friends are fake, her husband is incompetent, the French people are baying for her blood, and a strange sheep keeps reminding her of her impending death. Totally. Not. Cool.
Playwright David Adjmi offers a new take on the iconic and tragic queen of France in a sharply written, strikingly pertinent play that is as sour as it is sweet.
- January 2023
‘Thank you for reaching out'
In a world increasingly disconnected from itself, Alex finds connection on the phone, telling their most intimate thoughts to a stranger.
Exploring the ways we love, lie and empathise, YOUR CALL is a play about the use and abuse of helplines, told through a series of phone calls. To an underscoring of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, we follow our protagonist Alex come to terms with family trauma from the safety of their apartment, addicted to the sound of that first ‘Hello, how can I help?’.
YOUR CALL is the debut play from writer Hayley Canham, whose previous work includes the five star musical ‘Medea The Musical’, which was performed in 2022 to sold out audiences at The Town and Gown Theatre in Cambridge and Paradise Green at Edinburgh Fringe
- January 2023
These things she knows to be true: she is fat, she is a woman, she is trans, she loves clubbing, she hates her body, she likes sex, sometimes, men don’t like her, except for Anders.
She is forced to navigate a world which constantly pushes her to the side, with wit and charm along the way. Find the answers to important questions like: How do you love? How do you have good sex? How do you party hard? How do you learn to accept the body society has told you to hate? What happens when your world gets turned upside down? How do you recover from rock bottom?
- January 2023
"I think that I could be in love with someone like you..."
Jamie and Cathy’s relationship is over five years after they first met. Both have their stories to tell from meeting to breaking up, but while Jamie follows the events chronologically, Cathy traces the relationship backwards. With alternating songs, the pair meet only once in this sung-through musical, exploring themes of marriage, career ambitions and what it means to be in love.
Humorous yet poignant, at times heart-warming and at times heart-breaking, The Last Five Years encourages us to see the complexities within modern relationships, and ultimately consider whether we are right to do the things we do for love.
Accompanied by a powerful score, the Last Five Years moves between hilarious comedy songs and tender, emotional ballads to produce a whirlwind picture of Jamie and Cathy’s relationship, told through both their lenses
- January 2023
- December 2022
- December 2022
- November–December 2022
Leave your prudishness at the door. Let’s talk taboo.
Welcome to the Garden of Eden, where trees and flowers abound. But there are no snakes here.
We all know that Eve was tempted and caused The Fall. Since then, women have been taught to view their bodies with shame. But what if it never happened…?
A vibrant and colourful exploration of sex and self-hood, this devised piece of theatre imagines womankind if humans never fell to earth. fruit(ful) is an anthology of the experiences of womanhood which tackles new and old ideas in order to bear fruit.
- November–December 2022
‘Why do you think I asked you to peel the orange?’
‘To see what colour it was inside.’
‘And what colour was it? In your own words. Without any help from me.’
‘In my own words. Blue.’
In a London psychiatric hospital, a patient is coming to the end of his 28 day section time. But when he claims to be the son of an African dictator, and that the orange in front of him is bright blue, his psychiatrists begin to question his unnerving story.
Blue/Orange is an incendiary tale of race, madness and a Darwinian power struggle at the heart of a dying National Health Service.
- November 2022
This story follows the experience of Sophia, a young GCSE student from West London who has a passion for rapping but is forced to navigate the effects postcode tensions have on her family whilst also trying to find herself. Whether she is lying to herself, her best friend, or her brothers, she learns that despite the truth hurting, it also heals.
- November 2022
- November 2022
Anton Antonovich, corrupt mayor of an unnamed Russian town, loves authority - but hates responsibility. So, naturally, when he learns that an anonymous Government Inspector has been sent to visit the town, he panics. Discovering that a bureaucrat newly arrived from St. Petersburg has been set up in the local inn at the crown’s expense, the mayor and his cronies go to extreme lengths to appease him.
Considered one of the greatest satirical plays of all time, Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ still serves as a cautionary tale for those seeking power and authority.
- November 2022
Field of Folk invites you to enter the psychedelic dreams of one aspiring musician, meeting his own mind on his tortured quest to find Truth. Led through his mind by Imagination, his dreams — a mix of the childlike fantasies of Lewis Carroll and 60s psychedelia — set him on a winding path to rediscover his own voice, even in a world which has lost its song.
- November 2022
The writer’s hands are stained with ink and the page they write on is blank. They cannot push the words from inside them, out. This is when they are visited by Theuth, the god of writing. Theuth arrives in a flurry of darkness and an outpouring of words and offers them the gift of writing in exchange for a part of their life. They accept the offer and begin to write once more, again and again. But Theuth is constantly watching them from the shadows, and he is not a kind god. The writer is caught in a desperate act with the knowledge of Theuth’s return. And, when he does return - ...
This narrative is devised and experimental - it cannot be written down.
- November 2022
You are civilian — Now. But what if you have never been one before? What if your entire adult life has been combat-based? How do you learn to exist within a society that does not require your skills?
What you’ve been trained to do is useless — Are you useless?
As you try to navigate this now unrecognisable world that abandoned you, your past intercuts your present. Have you seen your friends die over there? Have you seen your friends die here? What have you done? And why?
Which rituals did they make you engage in that stopped from one second to the next — Rituals considered torture anywhere else? You believed what they told you: you will become legends — heroes — over there. But it was all a myth; and it’s too late now.
What if you could write a letter about your experiences? A letter to someone who understands? Someone who shares the same scar you do?
But what if you caused their wounds?
Solifuge thinks about the lived realities of being a veteran once you are back home. Trying to understand your experiences and how to move on, this play explores what it means to be haunted by your past and how you deal with that. We follow Corporal Simons as he writes a letter to a child he saw in Iraq. But in the end, the question remains: will anyone ever read this letter?
- November 2022
SMÖRGÅSBORD is the Corpus Playroom's own eclectic bi-annual showcase of new student-written theatre.
For over a decade, this evening has been a rite of passage for emerging student playwrights in Cambridge, and it’s the event at the heart of the Corpus playroom’s calendar.
We particularly seek to give a spotlight to those who haven’t previously had their work audienced, and to anyone who feels that they have an underrepresented narrative or cultural lineage to bring to the fore.
Come and sample a platter of the most exciting new theater in town!
- November 2022
The stories follows four people of colour, unconnected in all ways except for their melanin. We watch them reveal their innermost struggles and joys to a chorus and see how they are welcomed but occasionally shunned by their own.
It is a celebration and warning about the tensions that define black culture. These stories are personal and intimate markers about the Black Women. It is infused with movement that breathes life into the play.
- November 2022
In a study of the psychic torture we inflict upon society and ourselves, three people find out Hell is a room full of nothing but each other.
Garcin, Estelle, and Inèz are brought to Hell by a mysterious valet and are pleased to find themselves in a nicely furnished room. But what will happen as they begin to discuss the lives they led? Sartre explores perception and existence in this engaging, witty play.
- October 2022
N.B. this show has been cancelled
A new, student-written horror, ‘Edward’ tackles questions of democracy, our histories, and guilt. John and Billy happen upon each other at an Old Boys event for their college; John’s an admiral and Billy a politician but how exactly the country should be governed is a point of contention. As they reconnect, the spectre of their past begins to haunt them. Their guilt begins to bubble up, as do homoerotic tensions, and they are forced to relive their darkest days of university. Experimenting with the boundary between theatre and performance art, this play aims to unsettle whilst questioning on what kind of men have we built the foundation of our country.
- October 2022
“Do you see it? You see the bug? It’s feeding. It’s feeding off my blood.”
In a motel room in Oklahoma, Agnes is looking for comfort beyond her next fix. She finds it in local drifter Peter, who brings with him an unexpected guest in the form of a live egg sack underneath his skin. What follows is a feverish tale of twisted love, conspiracy and the contagion of paranoia.
- October 2022
"Do not let him finish this case. For the sake of his own health and yours..."
Thorgil was a world-renowned detective. A charming paragon of justice with a mansion, books written about him, and even his own thinking scarf!
Now he is an old man. Alone in a house too big for him and a world that sees him as nothing more than a cheesy sell-out.
But when he finds out that he is dying of unknown causes nothing else is on Thorgil’s mind except a mystery to be solved, and a legacy to be rebuilt.
This new original drama by Frederick Upton takes the iconic murder mystery genre and flips it completely on its head – exploring the dynamics of legacies, role models and swollen egotism- and poses the question of ‘what do we do when we see our old heroes grow too grey and senile for their own good?’
- October 2022
Love, betrayal and revenge behind the scenes of a production of Othello, against the political turmoil of Jim-Crow America, set in the hotels the cast stay in whilst on tour.
- October 2022
After meeting at a pet cemetery, divorce lawyer Bernadette and free-spirited musician Oliver start to date. But their relationship is tested when a new law is enforced: citizens are only permitted to speak 140 words a day. As their regular relationship develops against the backdrop of a dystopian political experiment, we ask ourselves: can a relationship survive on tapping out messages in morse code? How do you argue with your partner when you’ve got a word limit? And what happens to words when there is so much to say and so little freedom?
- October 2022
A New Brain is a musical about making the most out of life in the face of tragedy. When a neurotic, frustrated composer is confronted with a terminal illness, he finds comfort in the healing power of art. The show is William Finn’s autobiographical account of his own battle for life when afflicted with a brain injury. As the central character, Gordon, struggles to survive, he finds salvation in his music.
Brought to you by the writing team of tony-award winning Falsettos, A New Brain is a tender, heartfelt and funny exploration of the ways in which creativity stems from everywhere; “you gotta have heart and music!”
- October 2022
- September 2022
- July 2022
The Belvoir Players’ inaugural production is the premiere of “The Firefolk in the Air” by David Hutchison. The action centres on an allegation of sexual harassment and the university administration’s attempts to deal with it:
"On a starlit night, Terry Freeman, eminent professor of molecular biology at a redbrick university, is gripped in a moment of lust on the canal towpath with one of his post-grad students…
But who gripped who? And was there something else in the air that night? Vice Chancellor, Julie Richards, is determined to get to the truth of the matter, and to do what is best for the University…"
The well-drawn characters tell a compelling story, alongside the ‘who did what to whom’, raising many thought-provoking issues about justice, belief, society’s rewards, and the perspective of time.
The excellent cast promises to do justice to an intriguing and well-crafted new play by an award-winning author.
- July 2022
Two explosive and comedic short plays written by Steven Berkoff, performed back-to-back by the same one actor.
- June 2022
In a hilarious subversion of a romantic comedy, How to Date a Feminist turns a traditional straight relationship on its head by playing with ideas of feminism and gender roles. This incredibly self aware production uses stereotypes and cinematic tropes to bring a traditional rom-com storyline into the 21st century, weaving in some classic family drama for good measure. Kate and Steve are caught between their parents’ expectations, supposedly ‘perfect’ partners and their own predisposed (and gendered) understanding of what a relationship should be.
- June 2022
I want this to be a validating experience for you. Can I suck your cock?
52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals will not be a validating experience for you. In this devised two-woman comedy show, we will take you on a journey from Germaine Greer to Jouissance, from Barbara Streisand to BDSM. Documenting our experiences of love, sex and intimacy as trans women, 52 Monologues promises to be outrageous, confronting and honest.
- June 2022
Once upon a time, a load of gays and their cishet best friend (what? We all have one) walk into a bookshop, looking for love. Except of course no-one can agree, people are hiding things, and anyway love is always unrequited so what’s the point?
Meet Gee and Zae. Rich and Davie. Kallie and Chad. Three couples – or at least, they should be. But they don’t know that yet…
But, as if love and heartbreak weren’t enough, when their eccentric landlord threatens Gee and Zae’s bookshop, everything is thrown into flux. The bookshop is their anchor, their livelihood, and the centre of their little community. Losing it would mean losing everything.
- June 2022
Now and Then is a show about illness, and the feeling of being ‘other’ whilst navigating modern life.
- May 2022
Gareth and Georgia are getting married today. Which Ro and Mac are fine with. Really.
They’re fine with how Georgia (Mac’s ex) and Gareth (both Ro and Mac’s ex) met through them, fell in love, and happily left the two of them behind. They’re fine with how their own 15-year friendship was entirely wrecked through the creation of this rather confusing love quadrilateral. What they are not fine with, however, is how, instead of being at the wedding, they’re stuck in the storeroom of the sub-par Italian restaurant Ro works at, with nothing to do but finally talk to each other, and work through some of the things they’re potentially, just maybe, not so fine with after all. Wedding of the Century is a hopeful comedy exploring love and friendship, and what happens when the two really fail to work together nicely.
- May 2022
1 and 2 have been inside so long that they can’t remember their own names. It’s only when 3 appears that they recall there might be something beyond their living room. Over the years they have created their own world and named it Ballyturk, a place merging mythology and memory.
- May 2022
- May 2022
'A Place on Earth' is a fun new comedy following four students on a night out to a gay club in London. The audience plays the fly-on-the-wall to Tina and Harry's attempts to seduce Molly and Tom, watching the four as they drink more, take more and dance more. This exciting piece captures all the twists and turns of a night out; its characters are quick and thrill-seeking, its comedy is biting and its plot is relatable. In short, it's a great night out.
