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Cora Bissett

CORA BISSETT

  
Nationality:    Scottish
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    Amanda Howard Associates  

Cora Bissett is an award-winning actor and Theatre director, who trained at the Royal Scottish academy of Music and Drama. Having worked widely as an actress for 14 years, she attained the arches award for Directors in 2009 and devised her debut production amada which toured nationally. She launched her own company, Pachamama Productions in 2010, for which Roadkill was the flagship production. as an actress, she recently filmed the 9th and 10th series of Rab C. Nesbitt for the Comedy Unit/BBC, played in David Mackenzies 2011 feature You Instead and also recently starred in the international tour of Midsummer, for which she won the 2009 Stage Best actress award and will go on to open at Sydney Opera House in January 2012.

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below is a list of Cora Bissett's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         All Back To Bowie's         Amada         Glasgow Girls         Grit: The Martin Bessett Story         Love's Time's Beggar         Rites         Roadkill         Whatever Gets You Through the Night

All Back To Bowie's

Synopsis:
David Bowie said 'Scotland, stay with us'. At the Fringe, a group of Scottish artists take him up on his kind invitation. So pull up a futon, it's all back to Bowie's for an #indyref mix of politics, poetry, polemic and pop. Different guests every day make for an hour of gentle thought and hard day-dreaming. If you're obsessed with indy, undecided, federalist curious, or polymorphously politically perverse, David Bowie's yurt of thought is the place for you.

Notes:
created by David Greig, Swimmer One, Cora Bissett, Karine Polwart, Peter Arnott and more

1st Produced:
Stand In The Square, Edinburgh Fringe Festival    01 Aug 2014

Organisations:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
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Amada

Synopsis:
amada is inspired by a tale from Chilean writer Isabel allende. Using the remarkable singing voice of 'Basque-wegian' Nerea Bello, intense physical performance, visual poetry and Spanish guitar, Cora Bissett will recreate the colour, passion and sensuality of Latin America. Cora is an actor and musician who has played with the bands Swelling Meg, arab Strap and Mogwai. Recently she's had key roles in multi-award winning film Red Road and NTS' Wolves in the Walls.

Notes:
the Arches Award for Stage Directors - in Association with NTS Workshop And Traverse theatre - offers two emergent, Scottish-based directors the chance to stage A fully-funded production. This year's winners Are Cora Bissett And Rosie Kellagher And their productions will be presented At the Traverse As A double bill. Previous winners include Neil Doherty's Tone Clusters And Davey Anderson's Snuff which Appeared At the Traverse during the 2006 And 2005 Fringe Festivals.

1st Produced:

Organisations:

1st Published:
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Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
adaptation

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  vocalist, guitarist

Further Reference:
-

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Glasgow Girls

Synopsis:
Scotland 2005. a family is ripped from their home in a high-rise flat in Drumchapel and driven away in the middle of the night to be deported. . .Driven by a fierce sense of injustice, a group of seven young women in a high school in Glasgow fight for the life of their friend and for the rights of children of asylum-seekers in Scotland. they take on the Scottish Government and the Home Office and succeed where adults and politicians failed. Based on the true story of one of the most vocal and powerful asylum campaigns to catch the imagination of the media and inspire a community to unite behind its residents; the Glasgow Girls is a new life-affirming musical for a multi-cultural Scotland still in transition. the Glasgow Girls are a group of seven young women who have highlighted the poor treatment of failed asylum seekers. the group of girls from Drumchapel High School protested against the detention of one of their friends, agnesa Murselaj, who had fled from war-torn Kosovo. Publicity grew as the girls challenged the First Minister and publicly voiced their concerns as more children at their school were dawn raided, detained and deported. Two BBC television documentaries have been made of their story.

Notes:
conceived for the stage by Cora Bissett. Book by David Greig. Featuring original songs by Cora Bissett, MC Soom T, Patricia Panther And John Kielty.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
National Theatre of Scotland

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Grit: The Martin Bessett Story

Synopsis:
An ambitious new cross-form, Scots-Canadian site specific production based on the inspiring life and music of one of Scotland's most innovative, pioneering and influential musicians; the tragically late Martyn Bennett. Directed by multi-award winning director Cora Bissett (Olivier award-winning RoadKill, Creative Scotland award-winning Whatever gets You through the Night and Glasgow Girls.) Reflecting Martyn's own Scots-Canadian heritage, GRIT: The Martyn Bennett Story will be an exciting International collaboration with Canada's renowned choreographer Dana Gringas (of 'Animals of Distinction') and some of Canada's finest circus artists who will both work alongside an ensemble of Scotland's dance and aerial artists, actors, live folk singers, and classical musicians, whilst of course featuring Martyn's groundbreaking dance music in it's original form. This production will tell the painful yet inspiring story of a young man's phenomenal musical imagination, and his fierce fight against the cancer which ultimately robbed him of his short life at 33. His passion, his fierce love of life, music, the country and people who inspired his ground breaking creations are evoked and explored visually, physically and immersively in this highly ambitious musical adventure. "It's not how long you live, it's what you do with the time you've got"

Notes:
conceived by Cora Bissett, written by Keiran Hurley

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Pachammama productions, Tramway and Comar

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
musical

Parts:
Male:  6            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Love's Time's Beggar

Synopsis:
If you had a solitary memory to sustain you in the afterlife, what would it be? Love's Time's Beggar pitches five individuals headlong into a heavenly waiting room and demands they choose.
- Jay Richardson, Scotsman

Notes:
devised And presented by Ankur Productions Adult theatre Workshop with Cora Bissett

1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
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Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Rites

Rites
Rites is a powerful and provocative new play exploring the deep-rooted cultural practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This ritual of enforced cutting has been performed for centuries and millions of girls worldwide, often as young as five years old, are still subjected to it. The reasons are complicated and myriad. It depends who you are what you've been taught. Some things are simple though: FGM is still happening across the world. FGM is happening in the UK, here and now. Rites is based on interviews and true stories from girls affected in Scotland and the rest of the UK, mothers who feel under pressure to continue the practice, and the experiences of midwives, lawyers, police officers, teachers and health workers trying to effect change in communities. Weaving together different perspectives into a multi-voiced production, the play explores the complexities, misconceptions and challenges involved in trying to change what is to many, a fundamental rite of passage.

Notes:
Created by Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama

1st Produced:

Organisations:
National Theatre of Scotland

1st Published:
Oberon Books, London   978-1783198030

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Roadkill

Roadkill
In Benin City, a young girl struggles to support her family. a world away, in an Edinburgh tenement, 'aunty' Martha arranges a job and flight for her. Based on the experiences of young women trafficked to Scotland, Cora Bissett's explosive production, combining direct, chilling performances with video,animation and music, thrusts you into the brutal, complex and hidden world behind the newspaper headlines on sex-trafficking.

Notes:
written by Cora Bissett with text by Stef Smith. Rights: c/o Richard Jordan richard.jordan@virgin.net. Five previews At Tron glasgow in June 2011 As part of Refugee Week.

1st Produced:
Meet At The Traverse Box Office To Be Transported To The Production's Off-Site Location In Edinburgh    11 Aug 2010

Organisations:
ankur Productions and Pachamama in association with Tron Theatre

1st Published:
Oberon Books (2011) >>>    978-1849431989

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  male doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Synopsis:
Featuring exclusive new words and music by errors, Alan Bissett, Rachel Sermanni, Withered Hand, annie Griffin, Meursault, David Greig, RM Hubbert, Wounded Knee, Alan Spence, Ricky Ross, Conquering animal Sound, Emma Pollock, Isabel Wright, Kirstin Innes, Swimmer One, Bigg Taj, Stef Smith, Eugene Kelly, Douglas Maxwell, Talkingmakesnosense, David Ireland, Kieran Hurley. Some of Scotland's most distinctive novelist, poets, musicians, songwriters, playwrights and you: a nation of people, awake in the dark, waiting for the light to come. Whatever Gets You Through the Night is an ambitious new multi-disciplinary live event featuring actors, visuals by Kim Beveridge, aerial work, new writing by some of Scotland's top novelists, poets and playwrights, and a whole album's worth of original music by acclaimed Scottish musicians, some of whom will perform live in the show. Created by Cora Bissett with Swimmer One and David Greig, the show will be quite unlike anything else  a visual and aural banquet blending circus, cabaret, and a host of stories  all of which take place across Scotland between the hours of midnight and 4am. a heartfelt goodbye on the shore of Loch Lomond, an Skype affair between two people who never meet, a man searching for a lover in 'the palace of light', a character lost in a virtual reality game world, and an homage to the joys of chips and cheese& Come and meet lost souls, party animals and dreamers in a snapshot of an entire nation at its most vulnerable and revealing. as well as the live show, this unique, groundbreaking project also takes the form of a book, an album (released by Biphonic Records) and a film (directed by Daniel Warren) which will premiere at the Summerhall venue during this year's Edinburgh Fringe before going on tour.

Notes:
Created by Cora Bissett with Swimmer One And David Greig

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Vital Spark

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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