Charlene Boyd, one among Scotland’s main actors shares the story of one among nation music’s most iconic voices: June Carter Cash. Directed by the multi-award-winning Cora Bissett, June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me opens on the Dissection Room Summerhall as a part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe forward of a tour of Scottish cultural venues and festivals in August and September 2024.
June Carter Cash was a rustic singer, songwriter and dancer. She performed guitar, banjo, harmonica and autoharp, successful 5 Grammy awards throughout her profession. She got here from a household of nation singers and was the second spouse of Johnny Cash. Their relationship was celebrated within the Oscar-winning 2005 movie, Walk the Line. A brand new documentary about “June”, acquired its TV premiere on Paramount+ in 2024. This is the primary stage play to premiere about June’s life and music within the UK.
More than a easy biography of June’s life and music, this play with songs, sees Charlene discover her personal relationship along with her musical heroine and their shared expertise as performers and dealing moms. A strong, private journey of discovery stretching throughout the Atlantic, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Glasgow high-rise flats, their story is one among empowerment, endurance and perseverance.
Charlene Boyd travelled to Nashville and throughout the Appalachian Mountains to analysis this play. She visited locations that held particular significance in June’s life and interviewed family and friends of June Carter Cash, alongside up to date American nation singer-songwriters.
The present will function dwell music and might be staged in a cabaret type setting, impressed by Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café. Charlene Boyd will get to grips with a life much less strange on this uncooked but uplifting piece of intimate gig theatre.
Charlene Boyd, author and performer stated:
“I’ve sang in a band as June Carter Cash for over a decade but knew nothing about her really. I thought she was the pretty backing singer who sang along with Johnny Cash, then married him. It wasn’t until I started to dig that I realised how incredible June was in her own right, as an artist, woman and mother. I am proud that my first play shines a light on working class women artists and their struggle to be given their rightful place.”
Charlene Boyd is a Scottish actor and author, born and raised in Glasgow. June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me marks her debut as a playwright. As an actor she most not too long ago undertook the UK tour of 2:22 A Ghost Story and appeared in The Macbeths on the Citizens Theatre, for which she was nominated for Best Actress on the CATS Awards in 2019. Charlene has beforehand labored with National Theatre of Scotland on the productions Men Should Weep, Empty and The Miracle Man. Her tv work consists of Mayflies, The Trial of Christine Keeler, Crime S2, River City and Scots Squad. She additionally performs, as June, with Jericho Hill, in a Johnny Cash tribute band.
Cora Bissett is a Scottish theatre director, playwright, actor and songwriter. Previous work with National Theatre of Scotland consists of the hit political musical Glasgow Girls, Rites, Adam, Interference and Orphans. Other theatre work consists of Emma Donohue’s Room, which toured to London, throughout Scotland, Dublin and Toronto, the hit rock-music manufacturing Janis Joplin: Full Tilt and autobiographical gig theatre manufacturing What Girls Are Made Of, which received a Fringe First and Herald Angel award. From 2014 till 2022, Bissett was an Associate Director with the National Theatre of Scotland.
Founded in 1995, Grid Iron is a multi-award-winning Edinburgh-based new writing theatre firm who concentrate on site-specific and site theatre, though they’ve additionally created work for standard phases. Grid Iron have beforehand collaborated with National Theatre of Scotland on Roam, a site-responsive manufacturing staged in Edinburgh Airport.
Grid Iron have labored beforehand with Charlene Boyd on Barflies, Letters Home and The Devil’s Larder and with Cora Bissett on Clearance, The Bloody Chamber, Fierce and Yarn.
The Cash household has connections to Scotland. Johnny Cash claimed his ancestors have been from the Kingdom of Fife and was very pleased with his Scottish ancestry. Cash visited Fife on multiple event, recording a tv particular there, Christmas in Scotland, in 1981. June’s daughter Carlene Carter made a particular look at Celtic Connections in February 2024.
Both National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron have a longstanding relationship with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. National Theatre of Scotland has introduced 18 reveals on the Fringe since 2006, with earlier reveals together with Black Watch, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour and Adam. Grid Iron have appeared on the Festival Fringe 15 occasions since 1997 with choices comparable to Decky Does a Bronco, Doppler, Barflies and The Devil’s Larder.
In 2024, National Theatre of Scotland is producing a programme of three reveals on the Edinburgh Festivals. Alongside June Carter Cash, The Woman, Her Music and Me, Gary McNair’s Dear Billy is displaying on the Assembly Rooms and David Ireland’s The Fifth Step premieres on the Royal Lyceum Theatre as a part of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue and dates: Dissection Room, Summerhall from 02 to 24 August, 4:00pm
Previews: Friday 2 August to Sunday 4 August, 4:00pm
Performance time: Doors and bar open at 4:00pm, efficiency begins at 4:20pm
Touring Scotland from Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 22 September 2024:
- Barn, Banchory (Wed 28 Aug)
- Òran Mór, Glasgow (Fri 30 Aug – Sun 1 Sep)
- British Legion, Dunfermline – Outwith Festival (Tue 3 Sep)
- Cochran Hall, Kirkcudbright – Kirkcudbright Fringe (Thu 5 Sep)
- Millenium Centre, Stranraer in affiliation with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival (Sat 7 Sep)
- Brodick Hall, Arran in affiliation with Arran Theatre and Arts Trust (Wed 11 Sep)
- The Rockfield Centre, Oban (Fri 13 & Sat 14 Sep)
- Ullapool Village Hall in affiliation with the Ceilidh Place (Tue 17 & Wed 18 Sep)
- Forres Town Hall, Forres – Findhorn Bay Festival (Sat 21 & Sun 22 Sep)
Running Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes (approx.)
