| THEATRE PREVIEW: Historic roles ready
to excite Edinburgh Blue Masque
By Grainne McLoughlin
 New professional
theatre company Blue Masque are holding a number of exciting fundraising
events around Britain this year and patrons will be assisting a very worthy
cause.
The fundraisers are to try to raise some £67,000 for Blue Masque
— who will be opening two productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
this August and then going on tour.
Blue Masque’s debut productions are The City Heiress — a little-known
17th century satire on sexual and social morals — by Aphra Behn,
the first professional female playwright in Britain, and Aurora Leigh
— a music-drama adaptation of the 19th century epic poem by Elizabeth
Barrett Browning. Both will star Grainne Gillis — a trained opera
singer and acting graduate of the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre
School.
She is also working as an actor-manager for the first time on the project.
Actress-managers were a successful feature of the 19th century London
theatre scene and she is following in their footsteps as she assists in
Blue Masque’s aims of creating powerful, lyrical, imaginative, and
wickedly humorous, theatre.
Blue Masque’s artistic director Rhonwen McCormack, a directing graduate
of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, will be directing and co-producing
the season.
The City Heiress and Aurora Leigh will open at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
later this year. Fundraising events will take place throughout the coming
months. For further information about the events and the performances
at Edinburgh Fringe Festival contact Grainne Gillis. E-mail: gillisgrainne@hotmail.com
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