Stage: tasty drama

Bite-Size Theatre is back with their Edinburgh Fringe previews

Fringe favourite Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show returns for their tenth year with three menus of ten-minute comedies, eccentricity and mini-drama for festival goers to preview exclusively before the run at Edinburgh 2015.
And this time they are back with three servings of stimulating ‘bite-size plays’ from around the world – including a ten-minute version of Pride and Prejudice and a play called Quack, just two of a buffet of monologues, two handers and ensemble pieces to enjoy with a free baker’s croissant, fresh coffee and strawberries.
White Room Theatre are an award-winning theatre company who have specialised in short-form theatre since 2003 and have won the Latest Magazine Award for ‘Best Theatre Performance’, Fringe First nomination, Carol Tambor ‘Best of Edinburgh’ Award shortlist, and an Argus Festival Angel for Artistic Excellence.
The group also now presents, for the first time this year, a brand new format for a lunch hour show – a ‘bigger bites’ serving of two potent 20-25 minute mini-dramas in Lunch In Cairo.

Lunch In Cairo features a high energy double bill of one-act plays set in present day Cairo, Egypt and written by Tom Coash, an American playwright who spent a number of years teaching at the American University in Cairo. This is the European Premiere of these two plays, titled Veils and Ukimwi. The two stories show us very different sides of Egypt as seen through the lens of visiting Americans interacting with locals from contrasting ends of the social spectrum, one a young Kenyan prostitute on a frightening mission and the other a budding university student journalist who likes to party and longs for a more open society.
The plays are the work of veteran American playwright, Tom Coash, whose plays have been produced around the world. The full length version of Veils (developed from this original one-act version) was the winner of the 2015 American Theatre Critics Association’s ‘M. Elizabeth Osborn Award’, the Clauder Competition, recipient of an Edgerton Foundation National New Play Award, and a finalist in the prestigious Steinberg/ATCA Award. Coash is the author of past Bite-Size Breakfast Show favourites: Thin Air, the hugely popular tightrope walker monologue, and last year’s highly praised Raghead exploring veiling in America.

These two plays, Ukimwi and Veils, address the controversial topics of veiling and HIV/AIDS with humour and humanity; putting real faces on these complex and often misunderstood issues. The plays also explore the bigger picture of intercultural relations and whether two very different cultures can ever come together with respect and mutual understanding.
Veils, the original one-act version of Coash’s highly acclaimed full-length play of the same name, is set in the weeks just prior to the Egyptian revolution and features an African-American (veiled) Muslim girl doing a year abroad at the American University in Cairo, and Samar, her Egyptian (non-veiled) journalist roommate. When a protest against the banning of veils at their university erupts into a full scale anti-government riot, Intisar and Samar are surprised to find themselves on opposite sides of a bitter cultural divide.
Ukimwi , called ‘A stunning portrait of attitudes toward Americans in AIDS-ravaged Africa’ by New York’s Curtain-up Review and ‘Poignant, mesmerizing, gripping’ by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Coash offers a glimpse into the miasma of ignorance and superstition that haunt Africa’s struggle with their devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic through an encounter between a lonely American oil worker and a young Kenyan prostitute in a seedy Cairo bar.
White Room Theatre Ltd will be previewing this show at The Nightingale Room on 27 July at 8pm.
www.eventbrite.com/o/white-room-theatre-8257968955?s=40154757

White Room Theatre Ltd
presents The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show! Latest Music Bar 14-17 Manchester Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 1TF 
11am – 12pm Sat 25th & Sun 26th July, Sat 1st Aug
Running Time: 60 mins 
Dates: 25th & 26th July, 1st August
Tickets: £8.50 (including croissant, strawberries & hot drink)
bookings@thelatest.co.uk 01273 687171