How We Begin (NHB Modern Plays)

By Elisabeth Lewerenz

Helen and Diana are perfect for each other: they've both got good degrees, busy jobs and nice flats. There's just one small problem – Diana's got a boyfriend.
Elisabeth Lewerenz's play How We Begin is a tender exploration of love, queerness and identity. It was premiered at VAULT Festival, London, 2023.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Feb 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781788506595

Elisabeth Lewerenz

Elisabeth Lewerenz is a writer and editor. Her plays include How We Begin (VAULT Festival, London, 2023).

Book preview

Elisabeth Lewerenz

HOW WE BEGIN

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Welcome to VAULT

Dedication

Original Production

Characters

How We Begin

About the Author

Performing Rights

Welcome to VAULT Festival

Hoo boy! What does one even begin to write here? I don’t know. Better writers than I have articulated the myriad emotions and effects of the last three years. Words seem inadequate. But this is a volume celebrating words and writing and writers so I’m going to give it a red hot go.

It’s been rough, hey team? It’s been rough for the arts. Even more so for theatre and live performance. Even even more so for fringe and independent theatre. And even even even more so for emerging artists. If anything has been made clear these last few years, it is that there is a dearth of quality and financially sustainable opportunities for early career artists to make work and spaces to make that work in. When those few opportunities are taken away, everyone loses. Artists lose the opportunity to experiment and take risks. Audiences lose the opportunity to engage with exciting and radical work from a multiplicity of voices. And our industry loses the opportunity to grow, progress, be challenged and changed by these voices. It’s a long road to recovery with lots of listening and learning required. I really hope we’re up for it.

VAULT Festival has not been immune to the decimation of these last years. From the early cancellation in 2020, to deciding not to mount a 2021 Festival, and then the devastating decision to cancel a completely programmed Festival for 2022, this has been a truly difficult time for our artists and our team. Throughout this time it has been made clear to me over and over what a vital part of the live performance ecology VAULT Festival is. How important it is that we are here, providing quality opportunities in the most sustainable way possible for artists and audiences. That we are listening and growing and provoking. Providing space for artists to challenge and disrupt, to ask of an industry on its knees… ‘What if?’

The writers included in this, our sixth Plays from VAULT anthology, have all used their work to ask ‘What if?’ These are plays of importance, of playfulness, of risk, of freneticism and pathos and joy and anger and hope. Plays from artists across backgrounds, and styles and forms. I am so very proud of all of them.

These plays represent a mere fraction of the scope of work at VAULT Festival 2023. From stand-up comedy to late-night cabaret, from improvisation to live art and experimental installation, from linear narrative drama to absurdist immersive work, and genres I couldn’t even have imagined, VAULT Festival will tear back into the world with a scream. A scream of rage and catharsis. Of fear and hope. A scream of defiance. Our artists, both in this volume and beyond, are here. They are ready. They are fearless. They are disrupting. Because what we did yesterday is not sufficient for tomorrow. And we are up for the challenge.

WE’RE BACK, BABY!!!!

Bec Martin (she/her)

Head of Programming

VAULT Festival 2023

This is taken from Plays from VAULT 6, the collection in which this play first appeared.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may