DOWN THE ROAD (Opens March 2025. Playhouse East, Haggerston)
True-blue journalist couple Iris and Dan Henniman are hired to interview Bill Reach, a young, sadistic serial killer for his tell-all book. With dreams of starting their own family and hopes of this being their big break, Iris and Dan are drawn closer into Reach's chilling yet alluring orbit... unwittingly taking their work home with them. As the interviews get too close to home, Dan and Iris encounter a crisis of conscience: is this book serving them? The public? Or just Reach himself?
Tracy Mathewson directs "Down the Road" in a modern-day revival of Lee Blessing’s 1991 play that originally set Dan and Iris' journey amidst the public’s then-fresh morbid fascination with serial killers. Today, though, when the world of true crime saturates pop culture, podcasts, and television, the public's appetite for serial killer psychology is no longer salacious... it's ordinary. Mathewson sets this morality play from the 90s firmly in the 21st century to see what purpose our dark enchantment with murder serves.
NO FILTER (4 stars, 2016-2017)
Billy decides to give up social media for good while Harvey dives in head first - but they're not the only teens who are trying to separate who they are from who they are on the internet. And that's a tough thing to do when you can't remember living without it.
NO FILTER is a lo-fi, DIY collaboration with CROWDED NEST that uses teens' own experience to translate what happens on 2-dimensional screens into a 3-dimensional production about social media right now; the play premiered at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and then sold out a run at the Camden People's Theatre in February 2017.
"Relevant and and absolutely hilarious, but I would laugh and then think... this is actually really scary."
HAPPY GIRL (4 stars, 2015)
What's sexism like for teen girls? It's not about men - it's about girls taking each other down - "so that by the time we're women, dealing with the real sexist shit, we don't trust each other anymore." A feminist collaboration with CROWDED NEST which premiered at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and then sold out at Camden People's Theatre's Calm Down Dear Festival.
"The girls are that perfect mixture of sass and insecurity... incisive, fast-paced and dynamic." - Broadway Baby
TEENAGE DIRTBAG (5 stars, 2014)
A group of teenagers were asked what they feared the most, right now. They replied first: Exams. Second: Losing someone they loved. Tracy's second collaboration with CROWDED NEST about the teenage "pre-life crisis" premiered at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
"Poignant and funny, this coming of age drama seen through the eyes of a detached sixth former ticks a lot of boxes. Pacy and contemporary, the cast make imaginative use of the limited space with frequent set changes and confident physical performances. A must if you are a teenager, if you live with a teenager - or if you once were a teenager.”
- Fringe Freak, The List
SYNERGY (4 stars, 2013)
Two ragtag gangs live alternate lives in light and darkness: one talks blindly of theories and perception, the other watches the world in silence and awe. They do not challenge these existences, until one misfit puts a spanner in the works.
"A stylish little play set in an isolated dystopian playground... This is a very refreshing and interesting piece of escapist theatre" -Broadway Baby