Saying Goodbye...

Yesterday I finally went to collect the Roadkill set from the Market Theatre.  Walking through the echoing halls of hundreds of donors whose names shine down on you in gold print... people and organisations who have so generously supported theatre.   Patrons of the arts.  How wonderful.

I found it quite moving.

Roadkill is over. Finished. (Roadkill... which then became Sunday Morning... and then went back to Roadkill again).  2011-2013.  If we do ever do it again... it will be in many moons.  And perhaps not in English with this fine actor.  So in saying goodbye to this incarnation of the show, that I love so very much... I want to thank James Cuningham and Nick Warren.  James for telling this story so many times... and in as many times as telling it, saying something new each time.  He is such a fine fine actor.  Down to the very last performance I find myself smiling in the near dark of the lighting box as he delivers a line or finds a moment of play that I have never seen or heard before.  The very life blood of theatre.

I was reminded of the first time I read the play.  Nick made me a cup of tea and put on the side lamp as the clouds gathered outside.  And I read it and I loved it.  An hour later with a cup of cold tea beside me.  I couldn't say anything once I put it down... I found Nick in the kitchen making dinner and I just hugged him.  It has to be said... he can write.  We then asked James to be in it. After much consideration James sat down in front of his computer to send us his 'Dear John, I can't be in your play' letter, but before hitting send he asked his wife, Helen Iskander, what she thought.  James read her the play and she told him he had to do it.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

Thank you James and Nick it has been such a pleasure.

So... here is the show in a series of really lovely stills... courtesy of The Market Theatre.

Thank you to GoetheonMain for the initial funding to help develop the show.  To Strike Productions for always supporting us technically.  To Simon Cooper and Christina Kennedy for giving us the first long run at Kalk Bay Theatre and for all the work you put into helping us get such wonderful reviews... not to mention James' award for Best Actor at the Fleur du Caps.

Thank you to Daphne Kuhn for producing the first run we had in Johannesburg at Theatre on the Square which got us nominated for five Naledi Theatre Awards.  To The Market Theatre for inviting us for our final run in the Laager Theatre. 

And finally thank you to all of you who came to see it. Shot.