News
2009
Tony Breeze's one act play, "Danny Boy" was performed by the Cotswold Players from Stroud in the Gloucestershire One Act Play Festival in July/August 2009. The actor playing "Danny", James Sidwell, won the award for the most promising juvenile lead and was offered a place at a local drama school but had already accepted a place in London.
2010
The British Federation of Young Farmers groups have a competition each year to encourage participation ... one year the subject is musicals, the next is pantomimes and the third is drama. This year Durham Young Farmers chose Tony Breeze's comedy "Zoo," about futuristic mokeys who visit a Human Safari Park. They competed alongside other groups on Sunday March 7th 2010 at Trinity School in Carlisle and were pleased to report that the judges put them through to the next round in Manchester on 28th March. Congratulations to Corinne Cooper and all her cast.
2011
"Diaghilev's Bag" a searing drama about police officers coping with a suicide on a railway line, was found on our sister site and is to be used in a drama project by a 15yr old student from Tasmania ... proving the worldwide internet really works!
2012
"Examination" about a protest in an exam room, is in rehearsals for a future performance at The Mitchell Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent after one of the cast who had been in the play in a previous performance, Mathew O'Connor, was asked to direct a play and chose this one.
"Examination" was staged in a one-act competition by Michael Reed and the Potteries Theatre Company at The Mitchell Theatre, Hanly, Stoke on Trent at 14.30 hours on Saturday 10th March 2012
2013
"Wasps" which is a full-length play with an all-female cast and shows the first day at work for a young female traffic warden, was performed By Long Bennington Drama Society, Newark, Notts on April 26th & 27th 2013
"Diaghilev's Bag," a searing drama about a suicicde on a train line, was staged by Woodlands Drama Group from Harrogate in March 2013 in the Nidderdale One-Act Play Festival at the Frazer Theatre in Knaresborough.
"5T Rules - O.K!" a play about a school protest, was staged by Durham County Young Farmers at Sacriston, Durham on Sunday 3rd March 2013
2014
Having suffered for ages with writer's block and been to two funerals of near relatives, an incident happened that showed me I didn't have long left and that I should put my mind to finishing a play that I'd been trying to write.
Whilst moving heavy buckets of stones I'd had a pain in the left shoulder and went to the local GP a week later. He fobbed me off with "You've probably just trapped a nerve" but my son, who's now a consultant anaesthetist, advised me to seek a second opinion with the hospital cardiac specialist. The result was that four months later I was lying on the hospital operating table and (in my mind) facing possible death with a blocked artery. All went well, the specialist fitted a stent (a metal mesh tube) and I now hope to have a few more years of writing so watch this space. It seems I'm also worth quite a lot now in scrap metal value!
The threat from The Grim Reaper has been a great motivator and inspired me to finally finish the full-length play about twelve women prisoners being sent to Australia entitled "The Reluctant Emigre."
2015
One of my early one-act plays called "Ticking" about a group of survivors from a nuclear confrontation who have been living underground and been told by the authorities that no life exists on the surface, find an old-fashioned pocket watch still working. It gives them hope that there there is an alternative life above until one of their number, an authority figure, purposely stands on the watch and breaks it.
2018
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art have sought permission to use a monlogue from my play "My Father's House" in their next publication that students use when applying for courses at drama college.
2019
Extract from "My Father's House" is published in the LAMDA book of audition pieces ... a full length play about a poor farming family in 1930s America who take in a dumb black hobo who persuades them to build a many-roomed tree house in order to encourage their injured child to get better.