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David Leddy

DAVID LEDDY

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

Literary Agent:    n/a

David Leddy is a playwright and director based in Glasgow, UK. He has been described as the rising star of Scottish Theatre' by the Observer, a theatrical maverick' by the Financial Times and one of the most interesting Dramatic writers on the Scottish scene' by Joyce McMillan in the Scotsman. He specialises in work that combines Dramatic new writing with elements of performance art and unusual locations ranging from a graveyard to a greenhouse, from a pitch-black cupboard to his own bedroom. He sometimes even shows his work in Theatres. Outside Scotland, his work has been shown in London, Amsterdam, Boston, Buenos Aires and Delhi. His work is studied on various undergraduate degree courses in the UK and he is also the first person in Scotland to complete a practice based PhD in Theatre.

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

         City Of the Blind         Course of True Love, The         Home Hindrance         Horizontal Collaboration         In the Shade         International Waters         Long Live the Little Knife         On the Edge         Pater Noster         Reekie         Sub Rosa         Sussurus         Through the Night         Tympanic         Untitled Love Story         White Tea

City Of the Blind

Synopsis:
Epic political thriller available online via smartphone or tablet. Imagine a downloaded book that comes alive with audio, photos and video. Emotionally complex and intellectually provocative drama. From multi-award-winning writer/director David Leddy, maverick' (Guardian), genius' (Scotsman), 'leading innovator' (Times). Follow U.N. investigator and whistleblower Cassie Al-Khatib caught in a web of surveillance, violence, and counter-intelligence. Throughout six thirty-minute chapters you access secret files to hear Cassie's voicemail, intercept emails, and watch CCTV. Based on research into shocking real-life abuse committed by U.N. peacekeepers. Double-billed with live show Horizontal Collaboration. Download it at www.davidleddy.com (£8.99). www.madeinscotlandshowcase.com

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Online At Www.Davidleddy.Com (With Traverse Theatre), Edinburgh Fringe Festival     Aug 2014

Organisations:
Fire Exit / David Leddy

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:
Drama, Contemporary, 0 minute

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Course of True Love, The

Synopsis:
An everyday tale of caution, courage and Cleo Laine. Celia and Oliver are in the world's most expensive hotel, drunk on the world's most expensive champagne. It's not good. They have thirty minutes to make up their minds about a risky proposal that could tear their lives apart. A powerful politician waits downstairs for their decision. Will they retreat to the daily disillusionment of running a failing charity? Or will they find the courage to reveal their true feelings and speak truth to power?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
A Play, A Pie and A Pint

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:
short play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Home Hindrance

Synopsis:
Home Hindrance is new site-specific theatre piece and web-based film performed in a flat at the top of a Glasgow tower block. Only six people will be allowed in the audience each night, making for an intimate and intense night out as they are led through the flat, finding a different character in each room. This emotionally compelling piece weaves together such diverse themes as chronic sickness, soft porn magazines, weird Japanese food and abba's 'sOS'. In Home Hindrance, life at the top of a Glasgow tower block becomes melded with life on board the international space station, which can be seen on clear nights from the bedroom window. the play takes a semi-autobiographical look at the writer's own experience of living with a chronically sick partner for the last five years. at the same time, the piece investigates the degree to which any story is 'based on truth' and the ethics of telling stories about the lives of others. Oh, it's a love story too.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Glasgow, David Leddy's Flat     2007

Organisations:
Vanishing Point

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:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Horizontal Collaboration

Synopsis:
HORIZONTAL COLLABORATION is an intense live drama where sex, power and politics collide with emotion, seduction and destruction. It is performed daily by new actors who never see the script in advance. There are four desks and four laptops. Four U.N. lawyers have been brought in at short notice to read pre-prepared texts in an explosive tribunal. They are reading blind and have no idea what happens next. The lawyers read interview transcripts from Judith K, an African warlord's wife. After her husband's assassination, Judith becomes leader. She takes her people on a treacherous path towards peace. . .or does she? The lawyers turn off their lamps one by one, then their laptops, until we're all left in darkness.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival     Aug 2014

Organisations:
Fire Exit / David Leddy

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:
Drama, Contemporary, 1 hour

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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In the Shade

Synopsis:
the 'black' music sound, so often referred to as 'urban' is one imitated by whiter than white artists in various genres. and so David Leddy, in a range of cross-dressing attire, brings us a larger than life embodiment of this phenomenon in the form of soul diva LaToya Levine. - Meg Watson, the List.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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International Waters

Synopsis:
No refugee crisis ever looked so chic, darling. The social fabric has finally torn. Airports are closed, roads are blocked. Now even the 1% need to seek asylum. Four obscenely rich members of the elite pay through the nose to join an exclusive party on the last ship leaving London. They stay alive using the only things they know - money, sex and madness. But the ship is sailing in the wrong direction. They don't know each other. They don't know the Captain. They don't know what the hell is going on Like a perverse Aesop's fable for the apocalypse, the twisting plot explores how progress can sometimes be a trap. In this case it involves elegant glamour, brutal food poisoning, cyborg finance, and a delicious bull testicle meringue.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Glasgow, Tron     22 Mar 2016

Organisations:
Fire Exit / David Leddy

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Long Live the Little Knife

Long Live the Little Knife
Long Live the Little Knife is a dynamic, absurd and uplifting theatre piece about forgery, castration and blind drunkenness. Liz and Jim are small-time con-artists who need £250 grand to buy their way out of a turf war. their mission is to be the greatest art forgers in the world. there's only one problem. they can't paint. the audience sit inside a mess of paint-spattered dust sheets within the pomp and splendour of a former town hall. It's as if Jackson Pollock has drunkenly exploded himself in the middle of the room. All the lighting is second-hand equipment bought from a real building site. the characters of Liz and Jim were first seen in Thin Air, a seven-minute short commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed in the British Museum. the piece was such a hit that Leddy has brought the same characters back for this entirely new, full-length caper. In this fast-paced, provocative and boisterous caper Leddy finds the incongruous connections between verbatim theatre, free-market economics, the psychology of truth' and a castrated labradoodle in a classic Chanel clutch bag.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Film City, Glasgow (The Old Govan Town Hall)     07 Feb 2013

Organisations:
Fire exit, RSC, British museum

1st Published:
Fire Exit, 224 South Block, 50 Osborne Street, Glasgow, G1 5QH, UK   -

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:
site specific

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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On the Edge

Synopsis:
the Doctor finds himself playing right-hand man to the enigmatic Inspector as they investigate the frightful murder of the Doctor's dear lady wife. the suspects include a stuffy major and a mannish spinster, a blackmailing butler and a fiendish foreigner. So many cliches and so little time. On the edge reworks the whodunnit in a way that would have Miss Marple turning in her grave. David Leddy brings his eccentric, energetic stage persona and oddball wit to this mischievous one-man pastiche that takes the Cluedo rulebook and buries it six-feet under.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Devised Piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Pater Noster

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
arches festival

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Reekie

Synopsis:
Unique avant-garde walking tour on MP3 player and map. experience edinburgh's high times and low lives. Sonic art with sex, tourism and Routemaster buses.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
Site Specific

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sub Rosa

Sub Rosa
a gothic Victorian promenade show through the secret backstage spaces of the Citizens theatre. Out of the shadows comes a motley crew of sopranos, hoofers, chorines and wig-masters. they tell a haunting, mournful and darkly comic tale of yet another chorus girl burning to death beneath the stage while the show carried on above her head. Can somebody put a stop to these incidents? Will there be a bloodthirsty coup or a red velvet revolution? the management are literally getting away with murder. . .Sub Rosa has been created especially for the Citizens by David Leddy, who has been described as a 'theatrical mavErick' (Financial Times), 'one of the most interesting Dramatic writers on the Scottish scene' (Scotsman) and 'the rising star of Scottish theatre' (Observer). the promenade show will take an audience of just 15 people through the secret, backstage areas of the theatre.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

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:
80 min Piece

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sussurus

Synopsis:
Internationally acclaimed headphone audio-Drama based on 'a Midsummer Night's Dream' while walking in exquisite gardens from 'brilliant site-specific theatre-maker' (Scotsman).

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Assembly @ Royal Botanic Garden (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)     Aug 2009

Organisations:
-

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:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Through the Night

Synopsis:
a piece about the pop songs you listen to when you have a broken heart. the show is an eccentric and energetic pastiche of celebrity culture, like CinderElla rewritten by the Dalai Lama. Through the Night follows one night in the life of StElla Dustforth, a thoroughly hum-drum middle-aged woman who works in a betting shop. She finds a new job with a dominatrix-cum-record-producer and is thrown into a heady world of fashion stylists, PR girls and media tycoons.It's a tale of missing fingers, headbanging, betting shops, a dead dad left in his bed for weeks on end, Buddhists, wigs, spanking, Gladys Knight singing Help me make it through the night and an awful lot of white elastic.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Arches, Glasgow, UK >>>     20 May 2004

Organisations:
-

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:
Devised Piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tympanic

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Untitled Love Story

Synopsis:
Untitled Love Story- is a contemplative, provocative Drama set in Venice. the audience is asked to relax, close their eyes and be guided through a meditative visualisation as an electro-acoustic soundscape surrounds them. This meditation-as-art performance combines ancient Buddhist meditation with modernist texts and Fluxus-inspired instructional artworks. We meet four characters in four different decades who glide along the same silky canals after midnight, but never meet. a priest teaches meditation in a Venetian monastery only to be accused of heresy. a writer moves to Venice only to find her partner disappears. an art historian's serene exterior stands in stark contrast to his terrifying night sweats. a famous art collector eats roasted songbirds that were drowned in cognac.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Fire exit Ltd

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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White Tea

Synopsis:
White Tea is an absurd, eccentric Drama of love and loss, grieving and giving, brutality and beauty. a complex, multi-layered piece of visual theatre where the audience sit within a forest of origami paper birds and huge, colourful projections. they are given japanese tea and watch Naomi on her journey to Kyoto, searching for the mother she hasn't spoken to for ten years. But it turns out that her dying mother isn't quite who she seems. . .

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Fire exit and the Tron Theatre Company

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:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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