Come Die With Me

Written by Vicki Connerty / Directed by Shian Denovan

‘I had tighter cheekbones after I laughed my way through Vicki Connerty’s black comedy’ British Theatre. Upstairs, a man is dying. Downstairs, his family attempt to navigate their way through the entirely unfamiliar and oft-absurd waters of grief with varied levels of success. A darkly comic tale of love, loss and laughter.

How has Actor Awareness helped you ?

Actor Awareness was the first scratch night to fully stage my debut short play, ‘Come Die With Me’ which was a fantastic experience. It also got me my very first 5* review from BritishTheatre.com! Being asked to extend it for the New Writing Festival was amazing and terrifying in equal measure – nothing scares a procrastinating playwright more than an immovable deadline but the Actor Awareness guys have been nothing but supportive and encouraging, despite my occasional midnight ‘gaaaaaaaaaaaah, I can’t do it!!!!’ emails!

What do you hope to get from the festival?

An extended run somewhere would be quite nice! But in lieu of that, I’d just like to sell out my show and not have anyone walk out, fall asleep or throw cabbages at me afterwards. Luckily, I have a brilliant director and a talented cast so I’m hoping for a cabbage-free zone.

In three words tell us your writing style

Naturalistic, irreverent, optimistic.

In one sentence sell us your play

Come Die With Me is a darkly comic tale of one family’s attempt to navigate the unfamiliar and oft-absurd waters of grief and loss.

About the writer….

After spending two decades working in the media industry in the U.K and Australia, Vicki returned to London in 2016 to take up a place at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where she is studying for an M.A in Writing for the Stage and Broadcast Media.

In February 2017, Vicki saw her debut short play, ‘Come Die With Me’, performed as a rehearsed reading at Fizzy Sherbet’s new writing night before it was selected by Actor Awareness to be staged for the first time at their scratch night in April. Since then, it has been performed as part of Little Pieces of Gold’s new writing night at Southwark Playhouse and recently enjoyed a 3 night run at Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham as part of ‘The Platform’.

In April, she was one of four playwrights selected for Reading Between The Lines Theatre Company’s annual writing relay event, #OffTheBlock6 where each writer was given one day to write a 20-minute play, with all four plays then being rehearsed and performed on the Friday. As a dedicated and lifelong procrastinator, Vicki is still recovering from the experience of writing a play in a day.

Despite questioning the logistical and financial wisdom of writing a play that requires a full-size coffin, she is tremendously grateful to Actor Awareness New Writing Festival for breathing yet more life into ‘Come Die With Me’.

She is also grateful to the National Theatre for supplying aforementioned coffin at a discounted rate and to her white van driver Tomas for dragging it all over London and up several flights of narrow fringe theatre stairs without complaint.

Vicki is the author of a blog (‪www.fellowshipoftheringlets.com).

Directed by Shian Denovan