When a hot-shot fighter pilot’s unexpected pregnancy grounds her, she’s reassigned to fly drones in Afghanistan from a trailer outside Vegas. A sold-out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, this gripping solo show explores the screened in, greyed-out, hyped-up world of remote warfare in an acclaimed production from London’s Gate Theatre.
Studio Special Events bring unique performances and one-of-a-kind events from around the world to DC.
Part of Studio Theatre's New British Invasion festival, showcasing the work of some of the most accomplished and innovative plays by British writers under 40.
Run Time: 60 minutes with no intermission.
Environmental Warning: This production of Grounded contains strobe light effects.
Studio is grateful to
The Dallas Morse Coors Foundation
for the Performing Arts
for its generous support.
The 2013-14 Special Events Season is
generously underwritten by
Susan L. and Dixon M. Butler.
Grounded is produced with the support of
the British Council.
Partial support for open captioning is provided by
Theatre Development Fund.
Click on artist headshot to see bio
George Brant received his MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, where he wrote the piece that would be his first big success. Based on the true story of the 1916 lynching of a circus elephant in a tiny Tennessee town, Elephant’s Graveyard received the 2008 Keene Prize for Literature and the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award. Since its world premiere in 2008, there have been over one hundred professional, collegiate, and high school productions of the piece.
Brant’s other productions include The Mourners’ Bench (Trinity Repertory Theatre, 2012), Grizzly Mama (Dobama Theatre, 2011) Salvage (Theatre 4, 2012), Defiant (Cleveland Play House, 2011), Baby Talk (Elemental Theatre Collective, 2011), and Any Other Name (Premiere Stages, 2009). Grounded received the 2012 Smith Prize and received a National New Play Network rolling world premiere from Unicorn Theatre, Borderlands, and SF Playhouse. The show was also produced at the Gate Theatre, Page 73, Manbites Dog, City Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, and has upcoming productions at American Blues Theatre in Chicago and Red Stitch in Melbourne, Australia. Grounded is a finalist for the James Tait Black Prize for Drama in the UK and was shortlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award.
His other plays include Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, Miracle: A Tragedy, Good on Paper, Ashes, NOK, The Lonesome Hoboes, One Hand Clapping, The Royal Historian of Oz, Lovely Letters, Three Men in a Boat, Borglum! The Mount Rushmore Musical, Tights on a Wire, and Night of the Mime, which have been produced internationally by theatres that include Trustus Theatre, Balagan Theatre, the Drama League, Factory Theatre, StreetSigns Theatre Company, and zeppo theater company, among others. His work has been widely developed around the US and internationally in Moscow and Hungary, and Mr. Brant has received numerous awards and fellowships, as well as commissions from Dobama Theatre and Theatre 4. His work is published by Samuel French, Oberon Books, and Smith & Kraus; he is a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center and a member of the Dramatists Guild.
(As of June 2014)
Christopher Haydon is Artistic Director at the Gate Theatre and the former Associate Director at the Bush Theatre. Credits include Grounded, Trojan Women, Purple Heart, The Prophet, Wittenburg (Gate); Twelve Angry Men (Birmingham Rep/West End); Sixty-Six Books, In the Beginning (Bush Theatre/Westminster Abbey); A Safe Harbour for Elizabeth Bishop (Southbank Centre); Grace, Pressure Drop (On Theatre); Deep Cut (Sherman Cymru/National Tour); Monsters, Notes from Underground (Arcola); A Number (Salisbury Playhouse).
(As of June 2014)
Lucy Ellinson is an actor and theatre maker, specialising in devised and experimental performance and international new writing. She is an associate artist with Third Angel and Forest Fringe. Previous credits for the Gate Theatre include the Chorus in Trojan Women and Julian Assange in Tenet (Greyscale Theatre/Gate Theatre). Other theatre credits include Oh, the Humanity and Other Good Intentions (Northern Stage; Soho Theatre); Presumption (Third Angel); Money: The Game Show, Mission to Mars, The Swing Left, Tangle (Unlimited Theatre); 3rd Ring Out, Two Perspectives (Metis Arts); Where We Meet, Who We Are, Speed death of the Radiant Child, Homemade (Chris Goode); A Thousand Shards of Glass (Jane Packman Co.); 15 Minutes Live, They Only Come at Night, Helium (Slung Low); Monsters (dir: Christopher Haydon, Arcola); Land Without Words (dir: Lydia Ziemke); #TORYCORE (Forest Fringe, Gate Theatre, The Arches Brick Award). Radio credits include The Fall (Clare Duffy).
(As of June 2014)
Oli Townsend trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and is an Associate Artist at the Gate Theatre. Previous credits for the Gate include Wittenberg. Other set and costume design credits include Rodelinda (Scottish Opera); Macbeth (Blackheath Community Opera); Hitchcock Blonde (Hull Truck); A Beginning, A Middle, and An End (Greyscale/Scottish Tour); The Merchant of Venice (Creation Theatre); Gods are Fallen and All Safety Gone (Greyscale/Almeida Festival); Blood Wedding (Royal and Derngate); Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be (Union); .45 (Hampstead); The Barber of Seville (Opera Up Close); INTRIGUE/LOVE (Southwark Playhouse); Narcissus (Roundhouse); The Grimm Bros’ Circus (Bath Theatre Royal & En Masse Theatre); For All Time, The Memory of Water, Blackbird (Theatre By The Lake). Costume design credits include Wozzeck (English National Opera); The Lighthouse (Royal Opera House, Linbury); Big Maggie (Druid). Mr. Townsend is one of the Gate’s Jerwood Young Designers for 2013.
(As of June 2014)
Mark Howland studied, briefly, at Oxford University prior to training in stage lighting design at RADA. Previous credits for the Gate include Purple Heart, The Trojan Women, The Prophet, The Kreutzer Sonata (2012 revival), Yerma, Wittenberg, The Kreutzer Sonata (2009), and Vanya. Other theatre credits include Hitchcock Blonde (Hull Truck); Ignorance (Hampstead Theatre); Canvas (Chichester Festival); Ghosts, Sweeney Todd (Aarhus Theatre, Denmark); Singin’ in the Rain (New Theatre, Copenhagen); Entertaining Mr. Sloane, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Absurd Person Singular, Molly Sweeney, Translations (Curve); Measure for Measure (Sherman Cymru); Bea, Pressure Drop, On Religion (On Theatre); Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (Vienna’s English Theatre); Dick Turpin’s Last Ride, Much Ado About Nothing, Cider with Rosie, The Merchant of Venice (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); The Man Jesus, Uncle Vanya, Dockers, The Home Place (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); A Number (Salisbury Playhouse); Topless Mum (Tobacco Factory); Monsters (Arcola Theatre); The Pains of Youth (Belgrade Theatre).
(As of June 2014)
Tom Gibbons trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Recent theatre credits includes Lion Boy (Complicite); As You Like It (RSC); Julius Caesar (Donmar); The Spire (Salisbury Playhouse); London (Paines Plough); Roundabout Season (Shoreditch Town Hall, Paines Plough); The Rover (Hampton Court Palace); Love, Love, Love (Royal Court); Island (National Theatre, Tour); Romeo & Juliet (Headlong); Disco Pigs (Young Vic); Dead Heavy Fantastic (Liverpool Everyman); Plenty (Crucible Studio, Sheffield); Encourage The Others (Almeida); Wasted (Paines Plough, Tour); Chalet Lines, The Knowledge, Little Platoons, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (Bush Theatre); The Hairy Ape, Shivered, Faith, Hope and Charity, The Hostage, Toad (Southwark Playhouse); Sold (503); The Chairs (Ustinov Bath); The Country, The Road To Mecca, The Roman Bath, 1936, The Shawl (Arcola); Utopia, Bagpuss, Everything Must Go, Soho Streets (Soho Theatre); Hitchcock Blonde (Hull Truck). Credits as Associate include A Season in the Congo (Young Vic); Choir Boy (Royal Court); Broken Space Season (Bush Theatre).
(As of June 2014)
Benjamin Walden’s video design credits include PIIGS (Royal Court); The Universal Machine (New Diorama); Mare Rider (Arcola Theatre); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Arts Ed); Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical (Union Theatre). Credits as touring Video Supervisor include Menage A Trois, Macbeth (National Theatre of Scotland); Lovesong (Frantic Assembly). This role is funded by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, as part of the Jerwood Young Designers Programme at the Gate.
(As of June 2014)
