Open Works Festival presents a rehearsed reading double bill of Run Away With and Cottagecore.

Run Away With

There are police on the street - something must be wrong.

Sam and Ali, a couple in their thirties, have been putting off the decision to start a family, telling themselves that the state of the world is reason enough. One day, an unexpected event takes place, opening up a darkly comic and revealing conversation. As the evening escalates, the play peels back the layers of their relationship and asks whether their hesitation about parenthood is really political or something far more personal.

This reading is approximately 30 minutes.

Cottagecore

Out of the storm come all manner of things looking for shelter. Spirits. Creatures. Men.

When Kelvin and Eddie relocate to Cornwall after a personal tragedy, it’s meant to be a blank slate. But something’s different. Between the walls, between the waves, and between them both. When Eddie is called away for work, Kelvin begins looking for answers for the goings on in their cottage. In his search he finds Rayleigh, a local handyman with an interest in the couple and their changing dynamics, and the shadow of the Bucca, a shapeshifting male seaspirit from Cornish folklore slinking ever closer. Kelvin wants to understand. Eddie wants to disappear. Rayleigh’s here to help. The Bucca needs an offering.

Cottagecore is a new queer folk drama set in rural Cornwall, exploring shapeshifting within relationships, isolation and the cycles we haunt ourselves with.

This reading is approximately 75 minutes.

Part of Open Works Festival