CHERRY BLOSSOM

Traverse Theatre Company/Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz
by Catherine Grosvenor

" A landmark theatre event in Scotland... humane, committed, clever and strong"
The Scotsman

"a brilliant piece of work"
(Edinburgh Evening News review)
it is tremendously acted by the bilingual cast, with the passion of the Polish actors making a fiery contrast with the underplayed reserve of their Scottish counterparts... a technical wonder" (The Guardian review)
"it's the performances that eventually leave you feeling humbled...dazzling and heartfelt" (The Herald review)

Grazyna Antkiewicz lived.
Robert Dziekanski died.

Two people from Poland. One real, one imagined.
What happened - or might have happened - between there and here.

The distance from living the dream to waking up in a shared room with mushrooms growing out of the carpet. From desperately missing your child to falling in love with a foreigner.

Drawn, remembered and dreamed from the stories of the here-for-goods, the go-betweens and the left-behinds, Cherry Blossom is a co-production between the Traverse and Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz. It is a bilingual performance with a Scottish and Polish cast, using a mixture of written, devised and verbatim text with a state of the art multimedia design to create a powerful production that explores the myths, ideas and realities of migration and identity in the 21st century.

Following its Traverse premiere, Cherry Blossom will transfer to Bydgoszcz and Warsaw.

---

Catherine Grosvenor’s previous plays include One Day All This Will Come to Nothing (Traverse) and Lucky Lady (Sweetscar).

Lorne Campbell was formally Associate Director at the Traverse and his previous productions for the company include Night Time, the Tilt triple bill, Carthage Must Be Destroyed, In the Bag and The Nest.

Leo Warner & Mark Grimmer are the directors of 59 Productions who specialise in integrating projection, video and the moving image into live performance. Recent projects include Dorian Gray (Matthew Bourne), War Horse, Waves and ...some trace of her (National Theatre) and Black Watch (NTS).

Cherry Blossom has been made possible though generous support from the British Council, the Polish Cultural Institute, CRCEES and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (in the preparation for the Polish Season in the UK 2009-2010).