The Playwrights Database
RACHEL MARS
Nationality: British
email:
Click here to contact
Website:
Click here
Literary Agent: n/a
I am a performance maker with a background in theatre, live art and comedy. I use the autobiographical as a starting point to create performances that are funny, intimate, rude and sometimes heart-breaking. My work is text and action based. The text is sharp, witty and observational, often referencing and sending up modes of popular culture. It is poetic but comprehensible, leaving enough space for an audience to insert their own personal experiences. It interweaves personal reflection with universal questions, those of politics, identity and place. It also dallies with scientific fact, taking audiences on journeys that mess with satire and fabrication. The body in my practice is a site of personal histories, inherited behaviours and cultural expectations - both true and invented. Many of my performative images play on the smallness of my frame, and the way that my cultural heritage has written itself large on my face without my consent. My performances have involved eating as many twiglets as possible in a bid to grow a family tree in my guts, escapology acts, and small feats of - or attempts to improve - physical strength. Influences include - Stacy Makishi, Curious, Ken Dodd, Morecambe and Wise, Lisa Kron, Bobby Baker and Angela de Castro. I make performance work as a solo artist, collaborate with a range of artists including nat tarrab as mars.tarrab and curate occasional programmes of art and culture for JW3 London
Buy Plays with Doollee
Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.AbeBooks.co.uk AbeBooks.com Stageplays.com amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template
below is a list of Rachel Mars's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
27 Ways I Will Never Fuck My Mother Lady's Not For Walking Like An Egyptian Language Our Carnal Hearts Tomboy Blues: theory Of Disappointment Unto Us A Child Is Born Way You Tell them, The Your Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters27 Ways I Will Never Fuck My Mother
Synopsis:
Will having sex with all the teachers at school make you a teacher's pet? Is 5' 3" two inches too tall to be a Jew?
Notes:
Written by Rachel Mars And Nat Tarrab
1st Produced:
Battersea Arts Centre, London
07 Aug 2008
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: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageLady's Not For Walking Like An Egyptian
Synopsis:
What do you get if you cross all of the words of Margaret Thatcher's public speeches from the 1980s with all of the words of every top ten hit by a female artist from the 1980s and look at them through the filter of American Tan tights? Mars.tarrab explode, expand and explore political texts and pop lyrics to ask questions about power and influence, the female voice, the creation of memory and seeing your Dad in tears on election night 1979
Notes:
Written And performed by Rachel Mars And Nat Tarrab
1st Produced:
Organisations:
Mars.tarrab
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: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageLanguage
Synopsis:
Pouring fuel oil onto the Blue Peter garden of gender, this project investigates why sometimes it's necessary to smash things up. "People who do this sort of thing must be mentally ill" - Percy Thrower / the NHS A radical performance exploring the failure of language to communicate (simply) how we feel. Using vandalism, graffiti and a lot of noise, this performance challenges the portrayals of transgendered people within society and asks where is it ok for us to stand?
Notes:
conceived by Emma Frankland and Rachel Mars
1st Produced:
Organisations:
None of Us is Yet a Robot. Part of Sprint 2015
1st Published:
http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/56638/imaginary-plays-the
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: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageOur Carnal Hearts
Synopsis:
This fairy comes round your house. You. She says. You, my friend, are in luck. You get to ask for anything you want. Anything in the world and I'll give it to you. Money. A big house. Success. But whatever you ask for, your neighbour gets the same thing, but double. Great. You say. Fine. Cut out one of my eyes. We're finally here! Years of individualism, fears of scarcity, the joys of social media! We've made it into a toxic looking-over-our-shoulder shitstorm. But, hey. What's not to love? Our Carnal Hearts is a celebration of envy, a joyous call for everyone we've ever wanted to be and everything we've ever wanted to own, for those whose success we've wanted to destroy and whose lives we've pitted our own against. A toast to our competitive spirits and a rumbling dance for the uglygutter-tramping parts of our souls. A show that seeks to prove that envy makes us better. That politicians are right: its spirit runs through our veins, lymph systems and bowels and we wouldn't want it any other way. Standing somewhere between an ideological rally, a drunken sing-song and a horrible dream, this work-in-development continues Rachel's interrogation of envy, success and song following the pop-up choir Sing it! Spirit of Envy! in 2014.
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:
piece
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageTomboy Blues: theory Of Disappointment
Synopsis:
Acclaimed live artists and performance makers Rachel Mars and nat tarrab go on a quest from glass blowing warehouses to supermarket aisles, from a female boot camp to the scripts of When Harry Met Sally to see where love can exist when you can't even find yourself. Is hope worthwhile? Is life ultimately disappointing? Come and learn the brace position against the inevitable by-products of human existence
Notes:
Written And performed by Rachel Mars And Nat Tarrab
1st Produced:
Charing Cross Theatre (Formerly New Players Theatre)
19 Mar 2010
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: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
Theatre Record Volume XXXI (2011) Issue 22 Page 1190
Top of PageUnto Us A Child Is Born
Synopsis:
Rachel Mars's solo show Unto Us A Child Is Born looks at the contradictions of tomboy identities, how, when and if you can escape the grip of your family, and why it might be important to be able to lift your own weight. Funny, moving and curious, it was a hit of the east end Collaborations festival. the show examines all the muscles in the face, and how we use them to say a lot of words that never allow us to say what we need to.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Rich Mix, London
03 Feb 2010
Organisations:
In partnership with the JCC for London
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: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageWay You Tell them, The
Synopsis:
Rachel Mars knows she can remedy any situation with a joke. But what if she couldn't fall back on laughter? In her latest solo performance, Rachel searches for what lies beyond the gags, the jokes and the pratfalls and weaves a thoughtful and provocative story that questions how we use and abuse humour. the Way You Tell them interrogates the desire and the compulsion to be funny, using real-life material, classic oral sex jokes and a wolf suit to turn the spotlight on the inner workings of comedy.
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
The Basement, Brighton
11 May 2013
Organisations:
Brighton 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:
60 min piece
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageYour Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters
Synopsis:
Historic love letters from Eleanor Roosevelt, James Joyce and Georgia O'Keefe
Notes:
-
1st Produced:
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
2019
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:
Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of Page