Today we are taking a little break from talking about finances and I am happy to welcome the fantastic Linda Brogan. Linda is an award winning playwright, director and dramaturg. I met Linda in Selena Soo’s Impacting Millions Facebook group and we really connected over each other’s writing. She has been super encouraging of my writing and projects and I was really interested in hers.

Her professional bio is very impressive: In 1999 Brogan took part in the North West Playwrights’ course, and won the 2001 Alfred Fagon Award for her play The Well. This was followed by an attachment at the National Theatre Studio in 2002. Brogan’s first play What’s In The Cat was produced by Contact Theatre, Manchester and transferred to the Royal Court in 2005. Brogan’s other plays include Basil and Beattie presented at Royal Exchange/Liverpool Everyman, and The Very Thought of You, commissioned by Wolsey and Tricycle Theatre. Her last play Speechless did a critically acclaimed four star UK tour.

Her focus is in being born a slave to her colour, gender and class. The political, emotional and day to day ramifications of this topic are what we discuss in this episode, as well as her upcoming project with the restoration of the Reno Club in Manchester.

Quotes

• “Because I’m working class, half black, and because I was born poor, I have a lot of beliefs that make it difficult to work in the theater, even though those beliefs aren’t that strange.” – Linda
• “Everyone in the theater was white and middle class, so even if they were being as nice as pie to me, I would take it as if they were trying to be nice to me because I was black.” – Linda
• “I was talented and I tied that together with a ‘fuck you’ attitude.” – Linda
• “All I’ve been saying since I’ve been a playwright is that black people have feelings too. Their feelings are intricate, they don’t just need to be helped, and they have every day lives.” – Linda
• “You know, I’ve read loads of so called ‘authentic” slave narratives and there’s nothing about the people that they left behind… the upset that there must be about the brother or the sister, there are no feelings and no emotions. They are never allowed.” – Linda
• “There are no authentic slave narratives, not a one.” – Linda
• “I was on my knees to the arts, and I didn’t think I was, but I was, telling my story in a certain way.” – Linda
  

Connect with Linda Brogan: http://theagency.co.uk/the-clients/linda-brogan/

More about the Reno Club: http://www.mancky.co.uk/?p=4075

More about Speechless: http://www.sharedexperience.org.uk/speechless.html

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Manchester born Linda Brogan is an award winning playwright, director and dramaturg. In 1999 Brogan took part in the North West Playwrights’ course, and won the 2001 Alfred Fagon Award for her play The Well. This was followed by an attachment at the National Theatre Studio in 2002. Brogan’s first play What’s In The Cat was produced by Contact Theatre, Manchester and transferred to the Royal Court in 2005. Brogan’s other plays include Basil and Beattie presented at Royal Exchange/Liverpool Everyman, and The Very Thought of You, commissioned by Wolsey and Tricycle Theatre. Her last play Speechless did a critically acclaimed four star UK tour. Her focus is in being born a slave to her colour, gender and class.

Linda Brogan is a playwright of real significance.   Her plays capture the unspoken complexities of human relationships – the things we say, the things we hide, the secrets that shape us – in a way that few contemporary dramatists manage.  Immensely subtle and beautifully observed, Linda’s work gives voice to unforgettable characters and leaves us mysteriously changed.