WASTELAND
A theatrical disaster movie
by Nicola Baldwin
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It’s 02:00am. An academic, a cleaner and a student walk into a university...
LOU has clawed her way through academia into touching distance of the top job, tomorrow her prize-winning ‘Lychee’ building will launch to anticipated acclaim. A primary school teacher back in Mexico, ROSA has cleaned LOU’s office for three years, but the two women have never met, until tonight. JESS struggles over her dissertation in the 24-hour library, torn between her imminent Pret shift and joining her classmates’ occupation of The Lychee.
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By 03:00am all three women are trapped.
As they try to escape via a labyrinth of sub-basements before private security manager MALCOLM negotiates with striking union organiser DANNY to clear the building, they set in motion a chain of events which upend their lives and raise big questions for how we live now.
What’s the point of sustainable products when people are dispensable?
WASTELAND was completed with support of Adopt A Playwright Award (AAP) thanks to Sofie Mason, Diana Jervis-Read, Kenny Emson and all the AAP Angels; also Andrew Broadley, MGCfutures and NT Studio. It was begun as UCL IAS / Urban Lab Creative Fellow thanks to Pushpa Arabindoo, Nicola Miller, Jordan Rowe, Catherine Stokes and Albert Brenchat-Aguilar.
Image credit: Nick Spratling, The Official Photographer.
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Incomplete first draft readings 2020-2021, with Rebecca Crankshaw as LOU, Jimena Larraguivel as ROSA. Tara Kearney as JESS, Shreya Patel as 'THE PLAY'
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Nicola was inaugural Creative Fellow at UCL Urban Laboratory & UCL Institute of Advanced Studies 2019-2021, exploring their joint research theme of Waste through film and drama. She worked with Dr Pushpa Arabindoo on City Dionysia: Narrating Wasteland in Urban Life.
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