SCRIPTS PAGE FOR DOWNLOADS
Adapted from the modern classic, After The Bell Jar vividly captures the superficial reality of 1950s America with it's dark humour and wit. Extremely talented and with a prestigious internship on a New York Magazine, Esther Greenwood dreams of becoming a writer. Yet she finds herself spiralling into confusion and depression, that makes her world increasingly unreal. This is her journey to the edge of darkness and back.
Green Room Productions
''After The Bell Jar''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Patsy Hughes
25th - 29th June 2013
Crescent Arts Centre
Belfast
Cast
Louise Parker
Mary-Frances Loughran
Mary Lindsay
Aaron Hickland
Conor Maguire
Not an easy watch, but After The Bell Jar should engage hardened fans of Plath and newcomers alike.
Belfast Telegraph
The script is peppered with scalpel sharp one-liners and moments of poetic flourish...After the Bell Jar is a classy and imaginative work, a difficult piece adapted with fluency and style.
Culture Northern Ireland
Click for link to reviews
BBC/Stewart Parker Awards nominee [Best New Play]
Teenage conjoined twins Betty and Barney are left to their own devices in an abandoned button factory after an operation to separate them. Thrown out of a cozy institution of bath times and warm needles they grew up in, they are now left with a suitcase packed with bottles of milk and cash - the land of milk and money they dreamed of as children. Betty is excited about her new existence as a singleton. Free of her parasitic twin she strides out into the world for work. Barney is smaller, weaker and as he relied on his sister for life, now that they are apart he sees death roaring towards him. Both individually meet the troubled yet charismatic Brody who introduces them to the dark underbelly of a contemporary society riddled with drugs and voyeurism. Finally set free and equipped with all the money in the world can the twins survive separately yet stay together?
EBE Ensemble
''Choking the Butterfly''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Eric Mercado
25th Oct - 10th Nov 2012
9th Space Theater
New York
Cast
Christina Toth
Evan Johnson
Eric Alba
Tinderbox Theatre Company
''Choking the Butterfly''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Michael Duke
Dramaturgy by Hanna Slattne
8th - 12th June 2008
Old Museum Arts Centre
Belfast
Cast
Michael Lavery
Mary-Frances Doherty
Andy Moore
Original Production
Sensitive and moving…an impressive debut…that packed plenty of punch
Belfast Telegraph
Nanette Lovell Drama Award nominee
[Best Production]
Lauren wants to be famous…and to be famous you have to suffer the audition process.
So when she attends an audition for a ‘must-have’, career-building part, little does she know that the Director, Stella, has very strong views about how an audition should be conducted; about how the person auditioning should be tested and what should and should not be said. Stella is about to push Lauren to her mental, physical, emotional and ethical limits. Each of her auditions lasts for a complete day, and they are very much one to one.
Close to her breaking point, Lauren is subjected to alcohol, drugs and mind games as part of the audition process, all so that Stella can find out the answer to one question. How far will an actor go to get the part?
Mahalo Theatre Collective
''The Audition''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Kate Muir
4th - 6th June / 22nd - 23rd June 2011
Techno Theatris / Artworks Studio
London / Los Angeles
Cast
Ellie Coyler Alasquez
Julia-Scott Russell
A play by James Johnson, pulling out all the stops in this deliciously sadistic and deceivingly un-superficial dark comedy that will burn you in every way.
LA Theatre Review
Hugely enjoyable and well worth watching The Audition is a roller-coaster ride, laced with dark humour.
remotegoat
Vanessa's an addict. Marise is a collector. London-boy Sebastian sells. Polish Doctor Dylan tells people to stop. Four lives in Belfast revolve around a story of shoes and the passion, seduction, infidelity and violence that can ensue.
Weaver Hughes Ensemble
''The Importance of Shoes''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Timothy Weaver
2nd - 26th August 2007
The Green Room
Edinburgh
Cast
Jack Bowman
Hayley Doherty
Emily Juniper
Robbie Byrne
With sharp, snappy dialogue exchanges the play stylishly skips along, light-heartedly exploring our faults and vices.
A trainspotter attempts to coax a suicidal bride-to-be off a railway track and ends up marrying her; a portrait photographer cajoles his mute model to reveal to him her innermost secret; a pregnant woman is held captive by a girl who wants her baby; an adult film competition winner is made an offer he can't refuse; two alcoholics who have just robbed an off-license try to reconcile themselves to an unwanted by-product of their actions, and a psychiatrist whose latest patient has burnt his own eyes out for a sin that he's not been properly punished for.
Six stories about love and loss, crime and punishment - all improbably about to collide and intersect. Exploring the way love and guilt manifest themselves inside human relationships: the flowering and de-flowering; the living and dying, shouting and crying.
Loughborough Stage Society
''Glimpse Due Solace''
Written by James Johnson
Directed by Jessica Williams
12th-14th March 2009
Martin Hall Theatre
Lougborough
Collaborative Projects
Queen's University Belfast's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning's collaborative commissioned prodect ''Waiting at the Edge of Nowhere''. Fusing movement, text, light and sound to create a curious new show with drama and music students working intensively for 2 weeks with writer James Johnson, choreographer/director Stevie Prickett, composer Sophy Smith and lighting designer Ross McDade to create a brand new theatre piece. Exploring loss, youth, death and the uncertainty of the unknown.
Queen's CETL NI project
''Waiting at the Edge of Nowhere''
Choreographed/Directed by Stevie Prickett
Composed by Sophy Smith
Lighting by Ross McDade
Text by James Johnson
12th February 2009
Brian Friel Theatre
Belfast
Unproduced Work
Mrs Billy Klein is preparing dinner and watching outside, quietly judging.
Caden has just published a successful memoir of his difficult childhood and
the controversial ''relationship'' he had with a much older man. But a tense interview with journalist Julia is finding cracks in his story and local clown costume salesmen Fergus has bought Carrick a copy of the novel but Carrick is unravelling himself. And a young pharmacist is getting unwanted attention from the newly famous novelist - so what is the fact and what is the fiction?
At 29, a young woman prepares to go on her first date.