In the popular imagination, John Keats’s stay in Winchester in August and September of 1819 was a touristy sojourn, involving long walks along the picturesque water meadows that stretch either side of the River Itchen down to the medieval hospital of St Cross, and culminating in the composition of ‘To Autumn’. In reality, Keats was in the middle of a last-ditch effort to make money from his pen, conscious of the fact that without significant improvement in his finances, he could not marry his fiancée Fanny Brawne. Earlier in July, Keats had left London with Brown for the Isle of Wight, where they worked together in Shanklin on a tragedy, Otho the Great, intended to showcase the talents of the greatest tragic actor of the age, Edmund Kean. Shanklin had soon begun to grate on Keats, however, and he missed a ‘tolerable library’. After a few weeks, with new hope, he and Brown decamped to Winchester.

What is drawn out so powerfully by Cecily O’Neill’s splendid play for 2TimeTheatre about Keats’s stay in the market city, ‘A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester’, directed by Rachel O’Neill and introduced by Professor Chris Mulvey, is the sense of desperation that quickly began to settle on the poet as Summer drifted into early Autumn. News arrived that Kean was unavailable, dashing Keats’s hopes of a lucrative Drury Lane success. The poet was left pinning his hopes on a new romance, Lamia, which he tried to convince himself had ‘that sort of fire in it’ that would take hold of readers. He was love-sick and, ominously, the sore throat that had plagued him on and off for over a year returned.

Young actors Teddy Morris and Joshua MacGregor did a wonderful job of projecting and performing these tensions, desires and disappointments. Morris inhabited Keats’s overheated, increasingly pessimistic imagination in Winchester with aplomb, and MacGregor was equally convincing as the eternally optimistic, gregarious Brown. The pair’s word-perfect rendering of technically demanding passages from Keats’s poetry and letters was remarkable, and fully realised the ambitions of O’Neill’s hour-long, well-attended play, which pulled off the not inconsiderable trick of distilling events and emotions from across that difficult summer into a single animated conversation between Keats and Brown.

The bantering energies, shared enthusiasms and loyalties of the pair’s friendship were transferred from page to stage in fine style. Naturally, ‘A Fruitful Season’ paid homage to Keats’s most celebrated achievement in Winchester: the settled achievement of the ode ‘To Autumn’; but – and absolutely rightly – the ode’s seductive sonorities were not allowed to smooth over the angst and self-doubt that marked Keats’s visit to the market city. The audience was left with the poet’s overwhelming sense of failure and lack of legacy.

Musical accompaniment was ably provided by guitarist Owen Feeney and singer Polly Perry, including a performance of Rob Sword’s hauntingly lovely original setting of Keats’s lines ‘Ever let the Fancy roam’. The stone and wood-panelled acoustics of St Lawrence’s Church lent everything a mesmerising clarity and presence. It’s to be hoped that O’Neill’s play will receive another outing. It fully deserves one.

Richard Marggraf Turley

​The Keats Foundation Newsletter June 2019

​ 
 
Casting announced for A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester
Winchester actors take centre stage
 
Local Winchester actor, Teddy Morris, will be playing the part of Keats in 2TimeTheatre’s upcoming production of A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester. He joins recent Rose Bruford graduate Joshua MacGregor who plays Keats’ friend Charles Brown in this unique celebration of the poet’s visit to Winchester in 1819.
He and his friend Brown found it: ‘The pleasantest town I was ever in.’
 
Teddy was born and bred in Winchester and was a member of Encore Youth Theatre and took the role of Hamlet in Discarded Nut’s professional production staged in 2017.  Joshua has close ties to Winchester, with a grandfather and other family members living in the city.
 
Local musicians, singer Polly Perry (of Polly and the Billet Doux and Polly Gone Wrong), and guitarist Owen Feeney also join the cast. They will be performing Keats’ poetry set to music composed by Rob Sword.
 
The world premiere of A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester is directed by Rachel O’Neill and introduced by Professor Christopher Mulvey of the English Project. It is part of The Winchester Festival’s 2019 season.
 
2TimeTheatre’s previous productions for Winchester Festival include Venus and Adonis, Meeting Miss Austen and An Honest Soldier.
 
Performances are on Saturday 6 July and Sunday 7 July at 3.00pm at St Lawrence’s Church. Tickets £12 from the Winchester Cathedral Box Office 01962 857276 and on-line at www.tickets.winchester-cathedral.org.uk
 
For more information, press tickets and headshots, please contact Rachel O‘Neill, 2timetheatre@gmail.com, 07821879094.
 
Photo caption:
Teddy Morris Keats and Joshua MacGregor is Brown. Photo credit: Amazing Image Company

 
About 2TimeTheatre
 
2TimeTheatre's performance arm was launched in October 2013 with a theatre production of Young Jane, based on the early writings of a young Jane Austen and adapted by Cecily O'Neill followed by her adaptation of Venus and Adonis (2016). Publications include Young Jane (September 2016), followed by Drinking with Dorothy. Meeting Miss Austen, the second collection of plays based on the Juvenilia, was published May 2017 and performed as part of the Winchester Festival in July 2017. Other productions include Jane Austen and The Waterman (2017) and An Honest Soldier (2018). Sir Walter’s Women by Rachel O’Neill was staged at The Great Hall September 2018, and Tilly and the Spitfires also by Rachel O’Neill, at NST in 2019. www.2timetheatre.com

News Release: 2 May 2019 
 
A new production celebrating Keats’ visit to Winchester 200 years ago
​
John Keats is one of England’s best-loved poets. The beauty of his poems and his tragically short life make him an intensely romantic figure.  A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester celebrates his visit to the city in the autumn of 1819.  He and his friend Charles Armitage Brown found it: ‘The pleasantest town I was ever in.’
 
Drawn entirely from Keats’ letters and poems, the script includes his delightful descriptions of Winchester, an account of the writing of his most popular poem Ode to Autumn, and his obsessive love for his ‘Bright Star’ Fanny Brawne.
 
Keats’ months in Winchester mark his last great burst of poetic creativity, before the disease that killed his brother took hold. He died of consumption at the age of 25, believing that his work would soon be forgotten.
 
Writer Cecily O’Neill said: “I already knew and loved the great Odes and dramatic poems, but working on the script of A Fruitful Season, I discovered that Keats’ great ambition was to become a successful playwright. While he was here, he worked on a tragedy with Brown, who also features in the play. It was accepted at Drury Lane Theater (sic) but never staged, so I feel I am honouring his ambition with this production.”
 
With original music by Robert Sword and performed by professional actors, this world premiere is introduced by Professor Christopher Mulvey of the English Project.
 
2TimeTheatre’s previous productions for Winchester Festival include Venus and Adonis, Meeting Miss Austen and An Honest Soldier.
 
Performances are on Saturday 6 July and Sunday 7 July at 3.00pm at St Lawrence’s Church. Tickets £12 from the Winchester Cathedral Box Office 01962 857276 and online at www.tickets.winchester-cathedral.org.uk
 
For more information, press tickets and headshots, please contact Rachel O‘Neill, 2timetheatre@gmail.com, 07821879094.

2TimeTheatre is delighted to announce that Rachel O'Neill's play Tilly and the Spitfires has been selected to be part of Nuffield City Theatre's Make it SO Spring season.

Beatrice Shilling was a pioneering engineer in Britain’s race to dominate the skies at the start of WWII.   Obsessed with speed, she raced motorbikes and gained an MSc in Electrical Engineering, marking her out as an unusual woman from the start.   Working at RAE, she invented the solution to the fatal design flaw that caused the deaths of British pilots when their Spitfires lost engine power and spiralled out of control during dogfights with the Luftwaffe.

Her simple gadget was cheekily known as ‘'Miss Shilling’s Orifice’. This small object was fitted to the Merlin engine, allowing the Spitfire to engage on equal terms with German planes thereby helping the RAF to gain dominance in the crucial aerial conflicts of the war.
 
Rachel O'Neill, writer, said: "We'll be presenting this ‘'work-in-progress’ as a two-hander with professional Hampshire actors, Stacy Hart and Francesca McCrohon.  It’s directed by Dan O’Neill, whose work was most recently seen as the movement director for the Channel 4 series, Humans. This play is in stark contrast to my previous play, Sir Walter's Women, but both deal with the unseen and personal lives of their protagonists."
 
Tilly and The Spitfires aims to tell the story of Tilly’s groundbreaking discovery, of her intimate relationship with her friend Muriel, and her frequent clashes with those in authority as she strives to make her voice heard in a war run by men. 

Performances will take place at 8pm Wednesday 27 February and 6.30pm on Thursday 28 February at the Studio at NST. 

Tickets are £5 and are on sale now from https://www.nstheatres.co.uk/city

​NEWS RELEASE
 
21 September 2018
 
Ralegh stalks the Great Hall once more to acclaim
Winchester playwright’s ‘passionate and moving’ script
 
Last Friday and Saturday, Sir Walter Ralegh once again walked in the Great Hall in Winchester where he was tried for treason in 1603.  2TimeTheatre staged an original one-act play about this charismatic adventurer, poet and pirate in this unique setting in the 400th anniversary year of his execution for treason.
 
Accompanied by renaissance music group, Courtlye Musick, and directed by Alice Kornitzer, Jliiy Bond (Elizabeth I), Adam Kotz (Ralegh) and Lizzie Garland (Bess) brought Rachel O’Neill’s script to vibrant and dramatic life over three sell-out performances as part of Winchester Heritage Open Days Festival of history and culture.
 
This is what audience members said:
 
‘'A wonderful professional writing debut’ – Deborah Edgington, Theatre Director
 
‘'Hope there will be other chances to see brilliant @2TimeTheatre show #SirWaltersWomen - @GreatHallWinch stunning setting political thriller full of sex and intrigue by #RachelONeill beautifully performed by @JillyBond1 @lizziegarland #AdamKotz in classy @AKornitzer production’ – Carl Miller, writer and lyricist
 
'Felt part of something special last night. I am sure your play will be performed many times in future but seeing it in @GreatHallWinch was a privilege’ – Madelaine Smith, organiser Winchester Poetry Festival
 
'A riveting performance by @2TimeTheatre in the Great Hall’ – Dr Emma Cleary, University of Southampton
 
‘'The mix of drama, history with a hint of humour was brilliant’ – Carol Hussey, Economy and Arts, Winchester City Council
 
‘Congrats team Sir Walter Ralegh’s Women. At Great Hall Winchester last night. Excellent and informative script by Rachel O'Neill’ – Angie Street, playwright and dramaturg

'We had a wonderful time at The Great Hall on Saturday. The performance was so powerful; the costumes were wonderful to see and the use of the hall was done so well. I would certainly see them again should they be performing.' - Audience member

'It was amazing to see a world premiere in the very special surroundings of The Great Hall for free. The performances were extraordinary and the writing superb. And to think much of this national history took place right here in Winchester. More of this please!'  - Audience member

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 News Release: 14 August 2018

Casting announced for the premiere of Sir Walter’s Women

Just over 400 years ago, the dashing Elizabethan hero, explorer and poet, Sir Walter Ralegh was convicted of treason in The Great Hall in Winchester. He was beheaded on the 29th October 1618.

Winchester-based 2TimeTheatre is delighted to announce the casting for its new production, Sir Walter's Women, written by Rachel O’Neill and directed by Alice Kornitzer, which re-imagines scenes from the life of this charismatic adventurer in the 400 year anniversary of his death. It will be staged in The Great Hall as part of Winchester Heritage Open Days, the UK’s largest festival of history and culture.
 
Adam Kotz plays the part of Ralegh. His films include The Last King of Scotland and Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching. TV includes Father Brown, The Hollow Crown, Silent Witness, Midsomer Murders and Survivors. Theatre work includes roes at the National Theatre, RSC and Cheek By Jowl, and most recently as Pastor Manders in Ghosts at the Trafalgar Studios. He is an experienced voiceover artist and works regularly in Radio Drama.
 
Jilly Bond is Elizabeth I.  Jilly was most recently seen in Winchester in 2TimeTheatre’s production of Meeting Miss Austen. Other recent theatre appearances include being part of the Read Not Dead season at the Globe Theatre; playing a Russian survivor of the Siege of Leningrad at the Soho Theatre, Imaginationship and I Wish to Die Singing at the Finborough, Othello and Mrs Warren’s Profession at the English Theatre of Hamburg. She has recorded over 100 radio plays and short stories for the BBC (most recently for Radio Solent in their new play festival) and has appeared in The Archers. 
 
Liz Garland plays the part of Bess Throckmorton.  Liz trained at The Birmingham School of Acting and her theatre credits include Birdsong (Birdsong Productions & Original Theatre Company/National Tour), Gangsta Granny (Birmingham Stage Company/West End & National Tour), and Julia in The Ghost Train, Jo in Murder With Love and Captain Henrietta in Secondary Cause of Death (Talking Scarlet/National Tour). TV and Radio credits include Down to Earth (BBC), Milkshake Mums Campaign (Channel 5) and Josh Howie’s Losing It (Radio 4).

Courtlye Musick will provide music of the period.

The production has been made possible with the kind and generous support of Winchester- based solicitors and mediators, Shenton’s, Hampshire County Council, Cllr Dominic Hiscock and Winchester City Council’s Cultural Innovation Grant.
 
Performance dates and times:
 19.00 – Friday 14 September
 18.00 and 20.00 – Saturday 15 September
 The Great Hall, Winchester, SO23 8UJ

Free admission. Tickets can be reserved in advance here: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/events/2018/9/14/sir-walters-women
For more information and headshots, please contact Rachel O‘Neill, 2timetheatre@gmail.com, 07821879094.

About 2TimeTheatre
 
2TimeTheatre's performance arm was launched in October 2013 with a theatre production of Young Jane, short plays based on the early writings of a young Jane Austen and adapted by Cecily O'Neill. Young Jane is the first publication from 2TimeTheatre (September 2016), followed by Drinking with Dorothy. Meeting Miss Austen, the second collection of plays based on the Juvenilia, was published May 2017 and performed as part of the Winchester Festival in July 2017. Other productions include Jane Austen and The Waterman (2017) and An Honest Soldier (2018). 2TimeTheatre is co-producing new musical Lucky Petra written by Christopher Ash and Carl Miller. www.2timetheatre.com

 
2 July 2018
 
2TimeTheatre seeks Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Ralegh for world premiere of Sir Walter’s Women
 
Winchester based theatre company 2TimeTheatre is looking to cast its next professional production, Sir Walter’s Women.
 
This 35-minute one-act play requires a cast of three and we are seeking professional actors who are located within commuting distance of Winchester where the play will be performed on 14 & 15 September as part of Heritage Open Days.  The venue is The Great Hall, a unique and atmospheric space that has featured in The Crown and Wolf Hall.
 
Meetings with potential cast members will take place 10 and 18 July at the Discovery Centre, Winchester. Rehearsals will run 12 – 14 September. If you would like to be considered, please send your CV and headshot to 2timetheatre@gmail.com by 15 July 2018.
 
Background:
 
Just over 400 years ago, the dashing Elizabethan hero, explorer and poet, Sir Walter Ralegh was convicted of treason in the Great Hall in Winchester. He was beheaded 29th October 1618. Winchester-based 2TimeTheatre’s new one-act play, Sir Walter's Women, re-imagines scenes from the life of this charismatic adventurer.  Staged in the 400th anniversary year of his execution and written by local playwright Rachel O’Neill, the drama looks at the influence of two extraordinary women in his life; one domestic, his wife Bess, and one political, Elizabeth I.
 
Cast requirements:
 
Sir Walter Ralegh – playing age 45 – 55, ideally tall and slim with classical stage experience.
 
Queen Elizabeth – playing age 50 – 60.
 
Bess Ralegh – playing age 30 – 40.
 
There will be a dance sequence so movement skills would be desirable.
 
This is a paid opportunity. More information about the production can be found on our website: www.2timetheatre.com
 
About 2TimeTheatre
2TimeTheatre's performance arm was launched in October 2013 with a theatre production of Young Jane, short plays based on the early writings of a young Jane Austen and adapted by Cecily O'Neill. Young Jane is the first publication from 2TimeTheatre (September 2016), followed by Drinking with Dorothy (January 2017). Meeting Miss Austen, the second collection of plays based on the Juvenilia, was published May 2017 and performed as part of the Winchester Festival in July 2017.  Jane Austen and The Waterman was written by Cecily O'Neill and Philip Glassborow for the SO: To Speak Festival, October 2017.  2TimeTheatre is co-producing new musical Lucky Petra and producing The Honest Soldier, written by Philip Glassborow for performance in July 2018. www.2timetheatre.com

19 June 2018
‘
Original drama Sir Walter’s Women to be staged in the
Great Hall, Winchester
‘'He hath been as a star at which the world hath gazed, and like a star must fall’

Just over 400 years ago, the dashing Elizabethan hero, explorer and poet, Sir Walter Ralegh was convicted of treason in the Great Hall in Winchester. He was beheaded 29th October 1618.
 
Winchester-based 2TimeTheatre’s new production, Sir Walter's Women, re-imagines scenes from the life of this charismatic adventurer.  Staged in the 400th anniversary year of his execution, the drama looks at the influence of two extraordinary women in his life; one domestic, his wife Bess, and one political, Elizabeth I.
 
With a professional cast of three, and accompanied by Renaissance music group Courtlye Musick, this original one-act drama will have its premiere in Winchester's unique and atmospheric medieval hall as part of Heritage Open Days, the UK's largest festival of history and culture.
 
Writer Rachel O’Neill said: “Originally I wanted to stage his trial for treason in the very place where it happened, but as I researched his life, I realized that looking at his relationship with the two women in his life was inherently more dramatic, and perhaps illuminating as to why he ended up as he did; tried and executed for treason.”
 
Nicky Gottlieb, Festival Director Winchester Heritage Open Days said: “We have a wealth of historically fascinating and important buildings in Winchester.  The challenge is to bring them to life so they become more than architecture. Sir Walter’s Women offers the opportunity to have the Great Hall animated by a drama about the people who actually appeared there.”
 
This production has been made possible with the kind and generous support of Winchester based solicitors and mediators, Shenton’s, Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council’s Cultural Innovation Grant.
 
Performance dates and times:
19.00 – Friday 14 September
18.00 and 20.00 – Saturday 15 September
The Great Hall, Winchester, SO23 8UJ
Free admission
 
Photo credit: Mike Hall

“An Honest Soldier never is forgot,
Whether he die by Musket or by Pot.”
 
Summer 1918. Bill Wilson, an American soldier, is billeted in Winchester on his way to fight in the war in France. An encounter in Winchester Cathedral eventually draws him to a new way of life. And on his safe return to the USA, Bill becomes one of the two original founding members of a worldwide organisation – Alcoholics Anonymous.
 
"An Honest Soldier" is a new play for voices that includes music and poetry from the First World War, with extracts from the writings of Bill Wilson and Lois Wilson, speeches by Rudyard Kipling, and other contemporary accounts.
 
The unique setting for this world premiere is the Lady Chapel in Winchester Cathedral, and it was the discovery by Bill of an old gravestone in the Cathedral grounds which prompted a powerful revelation about his future.

Devised by local playwright, Philip Glassborow, and presented by 2TimeTheatre, the cast of three is drawn from Winchester and the surrounding area.  It includes ex-Symonds student Josh Henderson who plays Bill Wilson... renowned local professional actress, Ros Liddiard (Lois Wilson)... and Philip Bird (Kipling) who has worked extensively in the West End, The Globe and Chichester Festival Theatre.  Philip last performed in Winchester Cathedral when he was a pupil at Pilgrims! 

Musical Director Robert Sword comes from Alton and contributes his beautiful setting of "My Boy Jack" (the Kipling poem) alongside classic music from World War I.
 
This production has been made possible with the generous support of an anonymous donor and Winchester City Council’s Cultural Innovation Grant Scheme.

There will be two Winchester Festival performances in Winchester Cathedral:
Sunday 8th July at 2.00 pm and Monday 9th July at 3.00 pm.  Tickets are £10 plus booking fee and are available from the Festival website: www.winchesterfestival.co.uk or by calling Winchester Cathedral Box Office on 01962 857275.

Lucky Petra is one of three works in development that will be part of this year’s New Plays for Young Audiences (NYPA).  This follows Lucky Petra’s first outing as part of BEAM2018, the UK’s largest showcase of new musical theatre writing.  Writer Carl Miller and composer Christopher Ash have created an exciting piece of promenade theatre, driven by a travelling band and inspired by the work of August Strindberg’s allegorical play, Lucky Peer’s Travels.
 
The work will benefit from a week of workshops with a cast of NYU students, and script development guided by director, Tony Graham and dramaturg, Cecily O’Neill.
 
Petra lives in a high-rise tower, kept there by her father to protect her from the malign influences of the world. Petra’s eventual escape and journey – both real and psychological – is supported by a band of exiles and migrants as they traverse the post-Brexit landscape of Britain to a wild and anarchic musical accompaniment.
 
Tony Graham, director, said: “NPYA is a great testing-ground; a laboratory to explore whether a new play has life and then the potential for a professional production. Chris Ash’s vibrant, joyous music for Lucky Petra has already been given some air-time at BEAM, so this is an opportunity to probe the text. It allows us to look at the dramatic arc, the internal rhythms and the characters.”

Carl Miller, writer, said: “We wanted to combine our dramatic and musical passions to create bold, popular contemporary theatre for audiences of all ages, connecting the magic of European fairy tales to today’s emerging narratives of displacement; think Peter Pan meets Pan’s Labyrinth.”
 
Christopher Ash, composer, said: “The sheer joy and energy of a Balkan brass band music collides with the anarchy of street-punk music to drive the emotional tone and narrative of the play.”
 
Dramaturg and Artistic Director of 2TimeTheatre Cecily O’Neill joins the season for the 11th year in a row.

Lucky Petra is appropriate for ages 11+. Rehearsed readings are on Saturday, June 9 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, June 10 at 3 pm at the Provincetown Playhouse, 133 MacDougal Street, NYC.
 
Other plays on the season include:
HOW? is by noted author Lois Lowry and invites its actors and the audience to explore violence in society. Stan Foote directs. HOW? is appropriate for ages 13 and up. Rehearsed readings are on Saturday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 17 at 3 p.m.
 
Becoming Martin is by noted director, screenwriter, and playwright Kevin Willmott and explores Martin Luther King Jr.’s journey to understand his own feelings and beliefs during his time at Morehouse College (from the age of fifteen). Chip Miller directs. This play is appropriate for ages 11 and up. Rehearsed readings are on Saturday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 24 at 3 p.m.
 
About New Plays for Young Audiences
 
For twenty-one seasons, New Plays for Young Audiences has developed some of the most promising new works for family audiences. Supported by NYU Steinhardt’s Program in Educational Theatre, NPYA was founded in 1998 by the late Lowell and Nancy Swortzell as a supportive space to nurture and evaluate new TYA scripts.
steinhardt.nyu.edu
 
About 2TimeTheatre
 
2TimeTheatre's performance arm was launched in October 2013 with a theatre production of Young Jane, short plays based on the early writings of a young Jane Austen and adapted by Cecily O'Neill.   Young Jane was the first publication from 2TimeTheatre (September 2016), followed by Drinking with Dorothy (January 2017). Meeting Miss Austen was published May 2017 and performed as part of the Winchester Festival in July 2017.  This was followed by a production of Jane Austen and The Waterman, written by Cecily O'Neill and Philip Glassborow for the SO: To Speak Festival in Southampton, October 2017.  2TimeTheatre is co-producing new musical Lucky Petra and producing The Honest Soldier, written by Philip Glassborow for performance in July 2018.
www.2timetheatre.com