Propel: Scratch Night

The Millars

By Catherine Eager
For Bearcat Productions

Olivia is getting married tomorrow and called her three sisters to the venue the day before in the hope of reconnecting with each other for the most important day of her life. Separated by life, love and their own choices, the sisters try to navigate their tensions, Olivia’s special day, and learn to fit back together as women.

A child-free thornback, a bride-to-be living with infertility, a lesbian PhD candidate, and a 17-year-old college student trying to decide whether to follow in one of her sisters’ footsteps or carve her own path, The Millars explores several edges of sisterhood, friendship, and the female experience against the backdrop of “the happiest day of your life”.

Content warnings: Childhood bereavement, queer identity and closeted queerness, alcoholism.

Yellow Rose

Yellow Rose explores the emotional impact of dementia through the narrative of a couple’s lifelong relationship. The work looks at how illness can reshape identity, love and connection, even before physical loss happens. Moving and personal, this duet invites consideration as to how we support those living with dementia and those who love them. Audiences will be moved by the relationship that develops and degrades over the course of the piece and acknowledge the deep care needed to allow connections to flourish before it’s too late.

Dance Collide is an emerging duo based in Berkshire, dedicated to storytelling through fused contemporary contact vocabulary. Co-founders Reuben Spencer and Lauren Williams created Yellow Rose with support from Pavilion Dance South West and Pett Clausen-Knight Dance. In February, they premiered the work at Resolution Festival of New Choreography at The Place in London.

A Poet Lost at Sea

F.D.E Cater

“When are you going to finish that book? You call yourself a writer but where is your finished work? Maybe you too are lost in the purgatory state of procrastination.” Well, that is exactly how Tom feels; when he faces his darkest drought of writer’s block yet.

Follow a collection of poetry that, through a lyrical narrative arc, traces the echoes of forgotten ideas, the dreaded ache of unfinished work, and the quiet longing to be understood.

More than a meditation on artistry, this is a journey through the creative soul; messy, raw and unfinished.

Settle the Score

Michelle Sakyi

A woman recounts the event that led her to castrate her husband.

Inspired by the Lorena Bobbitt case, Settle the Score follows a Black woman who refuses to endure the abusive marriage she’s trapped in and takes matters into her own hands.

This piece focuses on Black female rage and aims to examine how race influences whose pain is believed, whose actions are justified, and whose survival is criminalised.

Hot Girls Have Trauma

Helena Yasmin

Hot Girls Have Trauma is a new musical written and performed by Helena Yasmin. Featuring original pop-R&B music and theatrical storytelling, the piece explores the messy, funny and deeply human process of healing after toxic relationships and personal upheaval. Through song, Helena shares an intimate glimpse into the inner world of a woman learning to reclaim her voice, identity and power.

This scratch performance offers an early look into the development of the show’s music and storytelling.