Back Home Contemplation (Staged Reading)

“Take your beloved England and tell her tomorrow that she shall lose for five generations and counting every doctor, every nurse, every teacher, every engineer. A country as advanced as that will tomorrow be in the Stone Age. You do that to a country in her infancy and you have a third world. A place of chaos. A place of war”

When Melissa’s mother, a famous Zimbabwean Prostitute, passes away on the eve of the 2008 presidential elections. Melissa gets the one thing she has wanted all of her life. To meet her “English” father Mwemba. But is he ready to respond to the daughter he never knew he had and answer to the decisions that have paralyzed all of their lives?

Several months later, to find safety from Mugabe’s militias and campaign of torture, Garikai has led his British educated half-siblings, Patience and Busani, into southern Zambia. But as more displaced Zimbabweans find their way to the growing communal fire, clinging onto the fragile hope that their parents are still alive somewhere in the over populating townships of northern South Africa becomes harder and harder…

Playwright May Sumbwanyambe has taken part in several young writers programmes, including most recently the Royal Court’s invitation only studio group. He has also been attached to the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse with the support of two BBC seed commissions. In 2011, May’s plays were shortlisted for both the Alfred Fagon and the BBC’S Alfred Bradley Awards. He has been shortlisted for OffWestEnd’ss Adopt a Playwright award on two occasions, reached the final round of Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award and was also longlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award. Currently writing under commission to Hull Truck Theatre, his shorter work includes With Fumes of Human Roast (Hampstead Theatre – Start Night) and Feeding the Birds (The Old Vic 24 Hour Plays). May is also a tutor on both the West Yorkshire Playhouse's annual new writing programmes.