Constellation Street

Matthew Bulgo

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783197712
• eBook ISBN: 9781783197729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

'Place like this – you know this – place like this gets in your blood. Once it's in your blood, you can't get it out.' One night under Cardiff skies, four lost souls go looking for answers. After dark, when the world is quiet, their paths weave and collide as they all go in search of salvation. When dawn breaks, life will go on but there will be another night to contend with soon enough. As the sun rises over the Taff, can anyone break free from the past?

CONSTELLATION STREET

BY MATTHEW BULGO

The Knowledge was originally staged on Tuesday 9 July 2013 at the Royal Court Theatre as part of their ‘Surprise Theatre’ Season. It was co-produced by Dirty Protest.

FRANK	Christian Patterson
Directed by	Kate Wasserberg

Constellation Street was first performed at The Other Room in Cardiff on 12 April 2016. The cast was as follows:

RUTH	Nicola Reynolds
FRANK	Roger Evans
STEPHEN	Neal McWilliams
ALEX	Gwenllian Higginson
Directed by	Chelsey Gillard & Dan Jones

CONSTELLATION STREET

BY MATTHEW BULGO

CAST

Ruth – Nicola Reynolds

Frank – Roger Evans

Stephen – Neal McWilliams

Alex – Gwenllian Higginson

CREATIVES

Directors – Chelsey Gillard & Dan Jones

Designer – Amy Jane Cook

Lighting Designer – Katy Morison

Sound Designer – Matt Jones

Design Assistant – Oliver Harman

Production Manager – Lauren Dennis

Stage Manager – Steffi Pickering

Assistant Stage Manager – Izzy Rabey

Assistant Director – Francesca Goodridge

Insomnia Season Sound Designer – Dyfan Jones

Matthew Bulgo trained at LAMDA and works as an actor and playwright.

His plays include Last Christmas (Dirty Protest/Theatr Clwyd, Edinburgh Fringe/Soho Theatre); The Knowledge (Dirty Protest/Royal Court, ‘Surprise Theatre’ Season); My Father’s Hands (Paines Plough, Come To Where I’m From); Lacuna (Three Streets Productions, New Wimbledon Studio); Real Human Being (Taking Flight). He is currently working on commissions for National Theatre Connections and National Theatre Wales.

Matthew was the recipient of the Best Playwright award at the Wales Theatre Awards 2015 and Last Christmas was nominated in the Best Production category at the inaugural Theatre Critics of Wales Awards.

He is an Associate Director of Dirty Protest.

Original Production and Future Productions

The four monologues that make up Constellation Street are published chronologically in the order in which they happen during this one particular night. Each has been given a specific time and location.

However, this is not the order in which the audiences of the first production viewed them.

In the original production the (already) small space at The Other Room was sectioned off into three even more intimate spaces – a hotel room, a corner of a bar, and an over-sized taxi. The audience were split into groups prior to the performance. Half of the audience started with Stephen in the hotel room, while a quarter started with Ruth in the bar and a quarter started in the back of Frank’s cab. Then the two quarters combined to head to Stephen in the hotel, while the larger group was split in half between the pub and the taxi. Finally, the whole audience congregated in an outside space to watch Alex’s monologue.

The observant among you will notice that this meant that each audience member only saw 3 of the 4 monologues. We decided that everyone needed to see Somebody Else’s Child and The New Girl for the whole to make sense, but that audience could watch one or the other of the remaining two pieces and still retain a sense of a through-line.

Future productions might decide to do something similar. Alternatively, they might decide to present all 4 monologues in more traditional theatrical setting. They might decide to have Alex ever-present while the other characters tell their stories. I think there’s an even a version where Alex’s monologue is peppered throughout the other three stories.

All four stories must be included in future productions.

Chelsey Gillard, Dan Jones & Neal McWilliams,
Constellation Street rehearsals, The Other Room.

Dan Jones & Matthew Bulgo,
Constellation Street rehearsals, The Other Room.

Neal McWilliams,
Constellation Street rehearsals, The Other Room.

Photography: Aenne Pallasca

CAST

Gwenllian Higginson – Alex

Gwenllian trained at Rose Bruford.

Recent theatre credits include The Good Earth (Motherlode); Hwyaden Fach Hyll/Ugly Duckling (Sherman Cymru/Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru); Dyled Eileen (Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru); Moon and Genie (Half Moon Theatre); Forever Young (Young Vic); Girl of Circumstance (Dumbwise); We Are Not Happy Clowns (FakeID); Last Orders (Solomon Theatre) and England’s Dreaming (The Unicorn Theatre).

Gwenllian is also a voiceover artist for ITV Encore.

Nicola Reynolds – Ruth

Nicola is from Cardiff and trained at RWCMD.

Theatre credits include Mother Courage and Her Children, Mametz (National Theatre Wales); TOM (Theatr Na Nóg); To Sir With Love (Northampton Royal & Derngate and The Touring Consortium); Much Ado About Nothing (Mappa Mundi); Dead Funny (Oldham Coliseum); Cinderella (Oldham Coliseum); Maid Marion & Her Merry Men (Bristol Old Vic); Silas Marner (Theatr Clwyd); Under Milk Wood (Bolton Octagon) and Tales from the Magic Story Bowl (Bolton Octagon).

Television credits include The Artist (Sky Arts); Ideal Series 1-7 (BBC); Stella (Sky1); Gwaith Cartref (S4C); Framed (BBC); Scrum 4 (BBC); The Story of Tracey Beaker (BBC); Murder (BBC); Ready When You Are Mr McGill (Sky); Clocking Off (BBC); Dirtywork (ITV) and Coronation Street (ITV).

Film credits include Human Traffic, Sex Lives of the Potato Men, The Machine, Blue Monday.

Radio credits include Nietzsche’s Horse (Radio 4); Road To Paradise (Radio 4); DIY (Radio Wales) and My Dog’s Got No Nose.

Nicola works as a Voice Over Artist and is also a Casting Director, having just cast Theatr Clwyd’s upcoming production of Cyrano De Bergerac.

Nicola’s playwriting debut A Sunny Disposition will be the last play of this season at The Other Room.

Roger Evans – Frank

Roger trained at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama.

Theatre credits include The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead (Liverpool Everyman/ETT/The Globe); Britannia Waves The Rules (Manchester Royal Exchange); Henry VI parts i,ii,iii (The Globe); The Get Together (Sherman Cymru); Salt, Root and Roe (Donmar/Trafalgar); The Fixer (HighTide); Red Bud (Royal Court); Fast Labour (WYP/Hampstead); Woyzeck (St Anne’s New York/The Gate); Professor Bernhardi, Rose Berndt (Oxford Stage/Arcola); How Love Is Spelt (The Bush); Gas Station Angel (Royal Court).

Film credits include The Legend of Tarzan, Black Mountain Poets, Kubricks, Svengali, Hunky Dory, Ghosted, A Bit of Tom Jones, Atonement, Daddy’s Girl, Human Traffic.

Television credits include Da Vinci’s Demons, 4 Funnies – Gittins, New Tricks, Comedy Lab – The Warm Up Guy, Goldplated, Midsomer Murders, Ghostboat, Aberfan and Murphy’s Law.

Neal McWilliams – Stephen

Neal trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Dra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Characters
• I. The Good Samaritan
• II. The Knowledge
• III. Somebody Else’s Child
• IV. The New Girl