Femme Fatale
The Chelsea Hotel, New York, 1968. Nico, singer with The Velvet Underground, is waiting to shoot Andy Warhol’s latest movie and for her lover, Jim Morrison, when her room is invaded by Valerie Solanas, radical feminist and would-be Warhol assassin. A duel to the death begins…
100 years since women got the vote, and 30 years since Valerie and Nico died, this reimagining of two female pop culture icons at the epicentre of ‘60s cool battling for control of their own destinies premiered at Wilton’s Music Hall on 17th July 2018.
Polly Wiseman
Polly was born in Sussex and at 18, moved to London to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She quickly realised that most of the roles for women were shit, and decided to write some plays where they got more of the fun stuff. She became a member of the Royal Court Young Writers programme, who produced her short play Trying It On (also adapted for BBC TV) and where she met Nathan Evans, the director of Femme Fatale.
Her plays include: Damage Control for Playground Theatre, Reflections for BYMT at Saddlers’ Wells, Somewhere In England, produced by Eastern Angles, Manchester Sound: The Massacre, produced by Manchester Library Theatre, nominated for a Manchester Theatre Award, The Power, short-listed for the Nick Darke Award, Bright, produced by Soho Theatre, Trying It On produced by Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and adapted for TV for BBC Fiction Lab, Loaded, awarded a Peggy Ramsay Foundation bursary, produced by Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, The Pinball Master, for the National Theatre Studio and Birmingham Rep, Stormin’ Jack Norman, produced by Menagerie TC, at Theatre 503 in London and The Roxy Theatre in Edmonton, Canada, Swedish Rustic, produced at BAC, Fierce: Canadian tour, Andy & Edie, produced by Fireraisers Theatre Company, toured the UK, nominated for a Total Theatre Award, Atomic, produced by Atomic Productions at Latitude Festival.
She has been Writer-On-Attachment for Birmingham Rep, Theatre Absolute and Theatre Royal Margate. Polly co-founded Fireraisers Theatre Company, which The Guardian called ‘one of the great hopes of British Theatre’.
A million years ago, she was a style journalist for i-D magazine, The Evening Standard and various others. And for a while, she worked as ‘Door Whore’ Polly Vinyl at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.