
HIStory
Leigh Douglas began collecting verbatim testimony for the piece which became Foodie in 2015. She was interested in putting private conversations between young womxn into the public discourse in order to offer a window into the experiences of womxn today. However, through research, she discovered that young womxn have borne a unique relationship with food, positive and negative, throughout history.
The show was further developed in September 2017 at Theatre Deli, which then continued on with a work in progress showing at The Hope Theatre in January 2018.
The piece is in continued development, working towards a full production and tour in 2020.
FOODIE
A young woman sits down with forty of her closest friends from three different countries, different ethnicities, sexual identities and professions and asks them one simple question: “How do you feel about food?”
Food is fuel. Food is family. Food is heritage. Food is self-expression. Food is love. Food is evil. Food is scary. Food is art. Food is comfort. Food is necessary to human life. A woman’s body makes food.
Foodie is a verbatim play about young womxn’s relationships with food, from the divine to the obscene. The Writer presents, for your delectation, the most intimate of conversations between girlfriends. And once she gets these women talking, it’s difficult to get them to stop.
Over coffees and cakes, wine and takeaway curries, tequila and nachos these women devour the subject of what they put in their mouths. Some choose to be identified by their real names—others use a pseudonym to express publicly what those closest to them may never know.
But there is one friend who doesn’t want to speak, who avoids her phone calls. And The Writer is left to question, has she let food get in the way of their friendship again?
Cast and Creatives
HOPE THEATRE, WORK IN PROGRESS, 2018
CAST
Leigh Douglas
Gabrielle Sheppard
Natalia Hinds
Clare McGowan-Duffy
Peyvand Sadeghian
Loussin-Torah Pilikian
R&D, 2017
CAST
Leigh Douglas
Gabrielle Sheppard
Natalia Hinds
Clare McGowan-Duffy
Loussin-Torah Pilikian
Mia Foo
CREATIVES
Writer: Leigh Douglas
Director: Fiona Kingwill
Movement Director: Amy Warren
Producer: Zoe Biles
Lighting Design: Martha Godfrey
Graphic Design: Emily Sillett