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Jenny Worton
Biography
Jenny Worton is the Artistic Associate at the Almeida Theatre. She was previously the Literary Manager at the Tricycle Theatre, and worked in the Literary Departments for the Bush Theatre and the National Theatre. In a freelance capacity she has worked for Out Of Joint Theatre Company, the Young Vic and the National Student Drama Festival. For Radio Four Jenny has abridged Dario Fo’s autobiography My First Seven Years, and written two short stories Demonstrating Grace and A Hallowed Space. She is the co-chair of the Board for Tiata Fahodzi Theatre Company.
Interview
Welcome to the Almeida Theatre’s Chain Play II. I’m Jenny Worton. I’m the Artistic Associate at the Almeida Theatre. I’m about to embark on a series of interviews with some of the artists involved in creating our second Chain Play. Last year Coutts helped us to realise a rather risky creation of a Chain Play and it was such a successful and unique evening in the theatre that we decided to do it again this year and Coutts are kindly supporting us once again.
The idea behind the Chain Play is to produce a show that will be seen for one night only and it’s created in the most unusual and theatrical of circumstances. Back in October last year we asked Neil LaBute to write a 10 - 15 minute scene to commence our play. The only restriction that we imposed was that he used no more than six actors, otherwise he was free to write whatever he wanted. After two weeks he delivered us a scene which we then passed to the second writer, Abi Morgan. Two weeks later, two scenes were given to the third writer, Tanya Ronder, and so on through Richard Bean and Stephen Adly Guirgis until we had an hour long piece written by five playwrights. Each of the five playwrights has a relationship with the Almeida and each has a very distinctive voice. The result is a rather wild evening of comedy and dramatic u-turns as the script changes hands and the next writer imposes their particular style on the play.
The following interviews are a sneak preview into the process so far.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the interviewees and are not necessarily shared by Coutts & Co.
Ways to listen
Listen online to the writer audio interviews. Alternatively, you can listen to the interviews as a download or podcast
