CATALOGUE
Plays, October 2013
Contents
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Agency North represents intellectual properties and creative talent in various sectors of creative industries, including theatre, feature film, television,
publishing and games.
Our theatre portfolio includes the vast majority of top contemporary Finnish
playwrights as well as many foreign authors. All in all, we handle performance
rights for over 4 000 plays and also represent local performance and adaptation rights to foreign works.
If you are an agent or an independent playwright, we are always interested in
co-operation.
This catalogue introduces some contemporary Finnish authors with a selection of their plays. For more information, the easiest way to get in touch with
us is to send an email to [email protected].
You can find our full contact details at the back of this catalogue.
Laura Gustafsson
Whore Story
Anomaly
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Gunilla Hemming
Nazi Wives
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Heini Junkkaala
Play It, Billy!
Bride of Christ
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Jari Juutinen
Juliette, Juliette!
I Am Adolf Eichmann
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Kati Kaartinen
10
The Moomins
11
Sirkku Peltola
Flight
A Little Money
To Be Human
Aina
12
Emilia Pöyhönen
The Chosen
The Gate-Crashers
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Pirkko Saisio
GAY! – A Queer Opera
14
Paula Salminen
13 Sunken Years
15
Milja Sarkola
The Family Member
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Tuomas Timonen
7
Maria Kilpi
The End of the Road
Megan’s Story
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Okko Leo
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Paavo Westerberg
They Don’t Live Here
Anymore
Casting Jimmy
Pitch
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Pipsa Lonka
These Little Town Blues Are Melting Away
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Photo: Markus Sommers
Laura Gustafsson
Laura Gustafsson (born 1983) is a Helsinki based playwright and novelist who
is one of Finland’s young rising talents. Her works exhibit extremities on both
dramatic and linguistic levels, but never slide into sensationalism or empty
exaggeration.
Whore Story
The Greek god Aphrodite moves to Finland, where no respect for love and
beauty exists. She coaches her new roommate Milla into a new profession,
making a good whore out of her. Meanwhile, Milla’s best friend Mia wants to
break the chains binding humans and animals, while Milla’s neighbour, sexy
Kalla, is raped and adopts two wild hyenas, Fear and Terror, to prevent it happening again. The patriarchy does not like the women’s rebellion and sends
Isis, the mother of all gods, to deliver a verdict on their behaviour. Can these
women continue to live as they want or what alternatives do they have? A hilarious, award nominated story for 8 actors. Available: FIN, FRE, ENG
Photo: Teemu Kuusimurto
Gunilla Hemming
Gunilla Hemming is a Finnish playwright, screenwriter, translator and dramaturge who writes primarily in Swedish. Her plays have been performed in
numerous theatres in Finland, reaching both Swedish and Finnish speaking
audiences. She has also written for film, television and radio, with many of her
works focusing on historical female characters.
Nazi Wives
Nazi Wives explores the lives of German women who lived behind the scenes
as wives of powerful Nazi officers. What part did these loyal hausfraus play
in the Third Reich? How they used their power and influence? Or were they
merely powerless apolitical onlookers of gruesome historical events?
Available: SWE, ENG
Anomaly
Composed of three interlinked stories, Anomaly deals with the conflict between child and parent, human and animal, and nature and civilization. Based
on real events, one-and-a-half-year-old Baby P. is abused to death in the UK
by his mother. Loosely based on historical events, Indian feral children Amala
and Kamala’s lives are followed from the 1920s to the 2000s, with Kamala,
considered autistic, locked into a European insane asylum. The third, wholly
fictional story is about a flight attendant who has to choose between abortion
and a child with Down’s syndrome. 5 women, 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG
[email protected]
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Photo: Tuomo Manninen
Heini Junkkaala
Photo: Mirja Vinberg-Mäkinen / Sunklo
Jari Juutinen
Heini Junkkaala (born 1975) is a Helsinki based playwright and dramaturge
who graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2006 and is the chairwoman of the Finnish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild. Themes central to
her works include the generation gap, gender diversity and the paradoxes of
Lutheran faith. Winner of the 2010 Nordic Drama Award.
Jari Juutinen (born 1959) is a Finnish playwright and director who also works
as the artistic director of Lappeenranta City Theatre, one of Finland’s major
professional theatres. His works aim to function as conversation starters, encouraging the audiences to think. “If at the end of the play the auditorium is
filled with complete silence, I feel that I have succeeded.”
American jazz musician Billy Tipton (1914-1989) was born and raised as Dorothy. As the young girl found it impossible to find work because of her gender,
she decided to become a man. Dorothy, now called Billy, became a well known
jazz pianist whose charisma attracted many women who remained unaware
of her biological gender. Billy gained everything thanks to a secret, but was he
also deprived of everything because of it? Shortlisted for the 2011 Lea Award
for the best Finnish play of the year. 2 women, 1 man (minimum).
Available: FIN, ENG, FRE, EST
Juliette grows up into a woman while the country around her experiences
an economic recession. She dreams of a Romeo, and receives a Raimo. He is
a good man, and they raise a happy family, yet Juliette has a problem: money.
Unpaid bills begin to take a hold of their lives, as Juliette’s anxieties increase
together with their debt. Yet, she is not ready to give up the symbolic bench
marks of success. One day, Juliette breaks down under the load and kills her
family. And the rest is silence. 4 women, 5 men. Available: FIN, FRE
Play It, Billy!
Bride of Christ
A play where each character searches for inner peace and justification for
their own views within Christianity’s complex relationship with gender and
sexuality. Marion is about to be married to her girlfriend but is suddenly contacted by God. Now convinced that she must change herself, Marion joins a
small conservative opposing homosexuality and the ordination of women.
Her mother, a Lutheran priest, cannot accept this. Shortlisted for the 2010 Lea
Award. 5 women, 9 men (role doublings possible). Available: FIN, ENG, SWE
[email protected]
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Juliette, Juliette!
I Am Adolf Eichmann
The protagonist of the play, Adolf Eichmann, is today considered one of Third
Reich’s most heartless bureaucrats because of his involvement in orchestrating the Jewish Holocaust. Yet, Juutinen is more interested in humanising than
demonising Eichmann. The play asks a number of important questions about
our understanding of ourselves, and looks at guilt, responsibility and forgiveness through a delicate balance of outrageous comedy and deep, sober tragedy. 1 woman, 10 men (role doublings possible). Available: FIN, ENG, FRE, GER,
SPA
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Photo: Laura Malmivaara
Kati Kaartinen
Kati Kaartinen (born 1972) is an award winning playwright, screenwriter and
dramaturge who lives in Helsinki. Kaartinen graduated from Theatre Academy
of Helsinki in 2002. In addition to works for theatre, she has also freelanced
for television and radio, as well as working as a dramaturge and a teacher.
To Be Human
Through five individuals, the play sheds light on the goodness of humanity, or
the lack thereof. Everyone seems to have a mission in their life. Father looks
for pardon, Son looks for his father, and Mary perhaps herself. The Brother
and Sister have built their lives on each other. What happens when another
person steps into the picture? Can they hear the other’s voice, or their own?
Which is a priority, your life or the other’s? The play has five songs, one for
each character. The songs give a voice to the characters which might otherwise remain unheard, unspoken. 2 women, 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG
Aina
Winner of the 2009 Lea Award for the best Finnish play of the year and the
2010 Theatre Achievement Award for Children or Youth. 10-year-old Aina becomes the head of her family after her father dies and her mother succumbs to
despair. Similarly, her teachers take leave for exhaustion and are replaced by
temporaries. But Aina’s new teacher is not your average temp. He manages to
reorganise things. The same can be said of Aina’s new strange, yet fascinating
neighbour. The play’s poetic language and structure leave space for different
interpretations. It is a play written for the whole family and meant for parents
to watch with their children. 3 women, 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG, FRE
[email protected]
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Photo: Mirja Vinberg-Mäkinen / Sunklo
Maria Kilpi
Maria Kilpi (born 1979) is a Helsinki based playwright and dramaturge
whose focus is in adapting existing material for the stage. Kilpi in fact identifies herself more as a dramaturge than playwright, even as her original work
has been highly praised both in Finland and abroad. The versatile author has
worked also as a director, lighting designer and teacher.
The End of the Road
A quiet, poetic play about open questions between generations. A girl visits
her grandmother, planning to spend the Christmas with her. She has brought
a video camera in order to record the grandmother tell her about the past.
The girl tries to find out what it was like when Russian soldiers came, but for
the grandmother, memories of last week’s trip to a glass factory, grandfather’s
smoking habit, and finally his death, are more readily shared than the Russian
occupation during which she lost her home. The grandmother avoids the girl’s
questions, even as they stay awake through a sleepless night, chat over some
bread and wait for a bus. As time passes, the old woman admits that talking
about what happened is too painful, and the girl finds a way to accept it. Written in short lines with many repetitions, a lot remains unsaid – yet, like in real
life, a great deal happens between the lines. 2 women. Available: FIN, ENG, GER
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Photo: Theatre Academy Finland
Okko Leo
Photo: Jussi Kirjavainen
Pipsa Lonka
Okko Leo (born 1971) is a Helsinki based playwright and dramaturge who
graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2011. He has written for both
stage and radio, and his plays have been performed in many of Finland’s best
known professional theatres, including the Finnish national Theatre and KOM
Theatre in Helsinki, as well as abroad.
Pipsa Lonka (born 1977) is a playwright and dramaturge who graduated from
the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2007. She is a versatile author whose works
include plays for both adults and younger audiences. Her plays are built
around strong emotions and often ponder about the relationship that people
have with art and with the world that surrounds us, especially nature.
Jack and Andrew are participants in a Back to Work scheme, and ground keepers at a soon to be disused sports ground. Neither Andrew, who has a mild
disability, nor Jack, who does not have any greater claim than muscle in this
world, plan to walk away from this job quietly. Their unseen boss administers
absolute instructions to ensure that the pitch is fit for an approaching match
between two local schools, and they prepare the pitch with this purpose in
mind – that is, until the prospect of romance comes between the two. The play
is a picture of society in which individuals have shrunken from active subjects
to mere observers of their own lives. Oppression has become anonymous
and in theory not targeted towards anyone or anything. The characters of the
play have to invent their own lives, their hopes, fears, crimes, and even their
exploitation. The lives of Andrew and Jack have shrivelled into a verbal game
– into a kind of virtual reality, which has no correspondence with authentic
experience. 2 men. Available: FIN, ENG, GER
Winner of the New Baltic Drama 2011 competition in Finland, These Little
Town Blues Are Melting Away takes place somewhere on the coastline of the
Baltic Sea, in a place that strictly speaking is not even a village. Water is rising
slowly, really slowly, without forming an actual threat, although the danger of
flooding is real. Close to the waterline are some houses, inhabited by melancholy Finns who know each other inside out. Some still have dreams. Others
just want to float through their lives. The local supermarket is sluggishly serving its sluggish customers. At the senior shelters they are busying themselves
and secretly looking back at the good old times. The world of the play is built
up with pictures. These pictures are their own worlds, slow, sometimes almost motionless, like photos. 7 women, 13 men. Available: FIN, ENG
Pitch
[email protected]
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These Little Town Blues Are Melting Away
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Image: © Moomin Characters™
Photo: Ari Ijäs
The Moomins (Tove Jansson)
Sirkku Peltola
Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was a versatile artist best known as the author of
the Moomin books that feature the adventures of a fictional family of white
Moomintrolls and their friends.
Sirkku Peltola (born 1960) is one of Finland’s most frequently performed
playwrights and most distinguished directors. She has written over thirty
plays and is the recipient of numerous awards. Her works, which have been
popular also abroad, embrace contemporary social issues with a unique, personal voice that combines realism with a sense of the grotesque.
Translated into over forty languages, the various Moomin books, comic strips,
films and television series have been immensely popular all over the world.
Numerous theatre productions are also staged every year, with producing theatres usually opting to create their own adaptations from the original stories.
The enormous worldwide popularity of the Moomin series has been attributed to Jansson’s ability to masterfully combine both children’s and adults’
world views. As a result, the Moomin stories are exclusively neither for children nor adults, and are able to charm both audiences equally. Another factor
in the Moomins’ popularity has been the unique nature of the Moomin world
itself, which is a fascinating concoction of fantasy and melancholy happiness.
Agency North represents all rights worldwide in the field of live performances
based on the Moomin characters, as well as Tove Jansson’s other works. Contact us for more information about production guidelines.
[email protected]
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Flight
An airport, just before Christmas. The country outside is dark, dreary, cold
and wet, and so some people are on their way to Egypt in search of warmth.
Some of them have come to the airport the previous evening, some have travelled through the night. Nobody has slept enough, their fuses are pretty short.
The airport is large, shiny, clinical, almost absurdly neutral, a space where ordinary conceptions of freedom and justice do not quite apply. It is a terminal
or gateway to another place, an intermediary space which itself is detached
from concrete reality. 4 women, 7 men, dancers. Available: FIN, ENG
A Little Money
Jason is a man in his fifties and someone we could call “academically handicapped”. His inner life is still, balanced, happy and child-like. He lives with his
aging mother without whom he would not manage, and who in turn is similarly dependent on Jason’s help. The major recurring event in Jason’s life is his
weekly bus trip to town with its always repeating tasks and rituals that bring
security to his life. But on one Tuesday everything changes when Jason meets
new people. 3 women, 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG, EST, SLK, RUS
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Photo: Mirja Vinberg-Mäkinen / Sunklo
Emilia Pöyhönen
Emilia Pöyhönen (born 1982) is a Helsinki born playwright and dramaturge.
In her writing, Pöyhönen is interested in exploring new dramatic forms and
their boundaries. Thematically, her plays often look at the ethics of human actions as well as the relationship between the individual and society.
The Chosen
A story about a calling, faith, suspicion and absoluteness. A triptych in three
times, places and forms. In the first part, a missionary couple and their two
daughters arrive to Tanganyika, Eastern Africa. In the second part, we follow
the two daughters, who have both become doctors and moved to back to their
homeland, with ghosts of the past literally haunting them. The third part is a
young woman’s monologue, which narrates the political awakening of a young
teenage girl, the discovery of a community, and the need to be a part of something bigger than an individual. Available: FIN, ENG, GER, RUS
The Gate-Crashers
A comedy about death, suffering and the logic behind the bureaucratic machine. At the centre of the play are encounters between people, and the freedom to talk about oneself freely. A Woman Who Has Lost Everyone lives in an
institution whose leader is a well-meaning bureaucrat, Big Brother. A spirited
lawyer comes to work in the institution wishing to save The Woman regardless of the sacrifices that it will take. 2 women, 4 men + 1 adult, 1 child, a choir.
Available: FIN, ENG
[email protected]
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Photo: Laura Malmivaara / Siltala
Pirkko Saisio
Pirkko Saisio (born 1949) is a multi-talented stage artist and a living icon of
the Finnish theatre life. Her works display a mastery of a wide range of different styles, as she is equally at home with powerful family dramas, historical
themes, and contemporary social and ethnic issues. She is the recipient of
numerous awards, including a Pro Finlandia Medal, three State Prizes and an
unprecedented four Lea Awards for the best new Finnish play of the year. Six
of Saisio’s novels have been shortlisted for the coveted Finlandia Prize, which
she won in 2003.
GAY! – A Queer Opera
An unscrupulous musical and a hot-blooded cantata about an age when the
church ruptured, the country was divided into two, and gays stopped being
nice. VT is married to HT, who is a Member of the Parliament. Moritz, who was
found on the street and now works as their au pair collects for HT’s political
purposes information about gays and their mating rituals. But what happens
when Moritz disappears into the night and runs into an old brotherhood of
gays, and a Muslim who has cut off his own ears? Or what happens, when VT
runs into a lieutenant from his past, as well as William Shakespeare and the
seven dwarves? And what indeed happens when HT’s conscience leaves her
and begins to show up in disguise all around the city? Winner of the 2011 Lea
Award for the best Finnish play of the year. 4 women, 8 men, musicians. Available: Contact us for more information!
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Photo: Lassi Györffy
Paula Salminen
Paula Salminen (born 1977) is a Finnish playwright and dramaturge who
graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2003 and has since worked
as a freelancer for theatre, radio and television. Themes common to her works
are gender, acceptance and the need to be free. In addition to her work as a
writer, Salminen has been an active force in the Finnish theatre scene also in
other ways. She is a board member at the Finnish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild and an active participant in the playwrights’ society Teksti.
13 Sunken Years
Winner of the 2012 Lea Award for the Best Finnish Play of the Year. Three
women: a mother, daughter and grandmother. When the mother disappears,
the daughter is left to take care of the grandmother, crushing her hopes of
leaving the small city in which they live. 13 Sunken Years explores the stories
of the three women, none of whom have men in their lives. It is a play about
growing up, the discovery of identity, and the question whether history can
repeat itself. At the centre of the tragic but often funny play is a river which
runs through the city as well as through the play’s system of metaphors. The
play is composed of 26 scenes that follow one another in a thematic and narrative order, rather than proceeding chronologically. 3 women, 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG
[email protected]
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Photo: Pauliina Feodoroff
Milja Sarkola
Milja Sarkola is a Finnish director and playwright whose works explore topics
such as narcissism, parenthood, sexuality and the boundary between the public and the private. She graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2006
and has since directed for a number of professional theatres. With her works,
Sarkola sets out to explore the self and others both intimately as well as from
a distance, as a phenomenon within a larger context.
The Family Member
The Family Member is a play about a theatre family who choose work over
each other’s company. Sarkola’s play is a witty and intelligent look at the
world of theatre, the acting profession, and the burden given to the children
of actors. Exploring one’s need to succeed and the pressures that it brings,
The Family Member allows the audience a glimpse into the realities that exist
behind the curtain. Theatre Takomo’s production, directed by Sarkola herself,
won the 2012 Thalia Award as the best Finnish performance of the year. 2
women, 2 men. Available: FIN, ENG, FRA, SWE
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Photo: Saana Lavaste
Tuomas Timonen
Tuomas Timonen (born 1975) is a Helsinki based playwright, director, dramaturge, actor and poet who graduated from the Finnish Theatre Academy in
2004. Timonen has written close to 20 works for stage and radio, and has also
adapted and translated plays into Finnish. Most of Timonen’s works explore
topics of abuse and violence, with his later works especially concentrating on
emotional violence. He has won the 2007 Dancing Bear poetry award as well
as the 2010 Lea Award.
Megan’s Story
This hauntingly topical play follows the story of a 13-year-old girl named
Megan who is subjected to bullying on social media websites. This causes her
great distress and ultimately leads her to commit suicide. The play is based
on real events. At its core, Megan’s Story is a play about a family, a community and the everyday human helplessness as one is trying to combine reality
with one’s hopes and wishes. The play’s characters are neither good nor evil,
but recognisable, annoying, understandable and real. Why our basic human
qualities are not so well transmitted online is one of the play’s central questions. Winner of the 2010 Lea Award for the best Finnish play of the year and
chosen as Finland’s winning entry for the Nordic Drama Train 2012-2013. 8
women, 11 men (role doublings possible). Available: FIN, ENG, GER
[email protected]
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Paavo Westerberg
Photo: Riku Isohella / Gummerus
Paavo Westerberg (born 1973) is a playwright, screenwriter, theatre and film
director and actor. Westerberg is a resident playwright at the Finnish National
Theatre and has received numerous awards for his films. His experience in the
film world can also be felt in his plays, which utilise similarly compact structures, characters and story lines, while nevertheless remaining works written
fully for the stage.
They Don’t Live Here Anymore
On a September 11, a family tragedy destroys two families and irreversibly
changes the lives of two couples. It shows that when the worst happens, the
greatest threat actually arises from within us. With four different people and
four different points of view, rebuilding lives is not an easy task. Each of the
characters keeps in their heart secrets and lies that cannot be buried even by
the slowly accumulating years. Ultimately the question becomes: can anyone
be innocent in front of blind chance? 2 men, 2 women. Available: FIN, ENG
Casting Jimmy
Three men in a hotel room in Cannes. One day before a major artistic breakthrough. A past that needs to be faced. Casting Jimmy takes place in the world
of film making, a place where dreams can come true, but where the price of
those dreams may turn out to be very high. How far is one ready to go to get
what one wants? What is the real price of dreams? Are friendships up for sale?
Who cheats who? And what is the place of art in today’s society, what should
today’s artists be like? 3 men. Available: FIN, ENG
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