COMMITTED

Original production directed by Charlotte Bellamy in 1992.
A Touch Tasteless Theatre Company (1993) Tour.
Directed by Pete Ayres

“Madness is like a swimming pool – a great big swimming pool just waiting, waiting for all of us. There are those who cannot wait to dive in. They run at it and jump with no inhibition. And there are those who just dip their toes in the water and like the feel of it. Then there are those who are pushed. You can drown or you can struggle to live, to breathe, to save yourself… or you can just splash about and have fun.”
(Dr. Simpson in Committed © 1992 Emilia di Girolamo)

Emilia’s first play. Set in Scarborough between 1969 and 1996 and inspired by real events, COMMITTED follows the complex tale of child killer Vivien, a woman in the grip of mental illness and Jessica, the young mother of her dead victim. Set in the surreal and nightmarish world of psychiatric units and special hospitals.

Runner up Questor's Student Playwriting Competition 1992

'an accomplished debut from such a young playwright, Committed is dark and disturbing, a nightmarish vision of psychiatric units and women gripped by madness' - Bucks Herald




1000 FINE LINES

Flying Machine Productions (1997) Machine Room, London.
Director Charlotte Conquest.

"I shall wear red and smile gently against the wind. I shall run fast through open spaces until I am so far away I may never return. And when I am done, I shall seek solace in some dirty room with nicotine walls and the smell of death. And there, finally there, I will find you again."
(Helen in 1000 Fine Lines © 1997 Emilia di Girolamo)

An adaptation of Charlotte Perkin Gilman's profound story of female madness, The Yellow Wallpaper. Ten years since the death of her child, and still grieving, Helen seeks solace in her yellow papered room where she tries to reassemble her broken mind. But Helen has ghosts that won’t let her rest - ghosts that tear away at the very depths of her soul.

"Not many plays balance wit and tragedy to such telling effect, whilst keeping the audience on the edge of their seats with chilling mystery. That's why Emilia di Girolamo's new play is such a treat. It is a testimony to the sheer quality of 1000 Fine Lines that the audience feel they are not watching so much as experiencing the intense, humorous and tragic world inhabited by the characters on stage"
Camden New Journal

TIME OUT CRITICS CHOICE
Finalist DEREK LOMAS PLAYWRITING COMPETITION 2003
Currently being translated into Mandarin for inclusion in an anthology of contemporary plays to be published in Taiwan and China.

CELL SPIN

“We come off the A12 and we’re driving through this street and I see the signs saying 30 but I stay at 50. I don’t wanna look stupid in front of Jase and he’s back on the phone to his woman and I’m still driving and then suddenly its all changed, all gone, all the sunshine‘s just slipping away ‘cause there’s this girl, six years old and she’s coming through the windscreen right at me and there’s splinters of glass flying off into my face and my hands and then there’s nothing, just this dead silence. I tried to look round, move my head. Jase is lying back in his seat, his eyes closed, not moving, a trickle of blood sliding from his mouth down his chin. His mobile’s lying on the floor right under my seat and I can hear his woman’s voice on the other end, shouting his name, over and over and on the back seat… on the back seat. She’s just lying there. No one in the car’s moving, not even me and I know I’m the only one who’s alive.”
(Stretch in Cell Spin © 2000 Emilia di Girolamo)

Category A prisoner Stretch falls for his English teacher Claudia when she breaks a few rules to help him out. When the student teacher relationship gets pushed too far and the strain of the environment begins to show, Claudia struggles to maintain the job she loves within a service she increasingly comes to loathe. Issues of rehabilitation and education of prisoners are explored through this complex relationship. Stretch tries to keep his nose clean and stay out of the seg. Jonno struggles to cope with coming off smack on his first bird. Mick wants a visit from his Mrs and Carling just wants to feel the rain on his face again.




BOOM BYE BYE

Paines Plough (2001) Wild Lunch V
Rehearsed reading Bridewell Theatre, London.
Director Graeme Maley

“There's more than one way to kill a person. I've been thinking for sixteen years about the best way to kill you.”
(Gina in Boom Bye Bye © 2001 Emilia di Girolamo)

BOOM BYE BYE tells the story of a woman who sets out to get the ultimate revenge on the gang of men who raped her when she was fourteen. It is a semi-autobiographical, hard hitting, violent play based partly on real events.

The play was optioned by Clerkenwell Films and has been developed into a single drama TRIGGER WARNING also written by Emilia.

Boom is currently optioned by Under The Skin Theatre Company for a new production in 2008 starring Gary Beadle, directed by Rikki Beadle Blair.

FALLING

“There's only three human bones that can withstand a fall from this height. The bones of the inner ear are protected by the skull on impact. It gives me some comfort to think there is one tiny part of him you didn't destroy.”
(Billy in Falling, © 2004 Emilia di Girolamo)

The latest play from Emilia di Girolamo.
In a fourteenth floor hotel room in Newcastle, Tish, Billy and Manni - three old friends, gather, the night before mutual friend Nathan's funeral. As they try to make sense of their friend's suicide, past betrayals are remembered. Manni's hiding something important, Billy's drunk and on a mission to find out the truth and Tish doesn't even want to be there. There's only one place to find out what really happened and that's the roof Nathan fell from but once the truth is out all three lives are changed forever.

Final Round VERITY BARGATE AWARD 2006

 

 

COMMUNITY GROUPS

Emilia has experience working with various groups to create work based on their personal experiences. She has worked extensively with prisoners, probation clients, youth at risk, survivors of rape, abuse and domestic violence and HIV positive clients. Emilia is occasionally available for commissions and projects of this nature.