Graeae Theatre Company, often abbreviated to Graeae (pronounced "grey-eye"), is a British organisation composed of deaf and disabled artists and theatre makers. As well as producing theatre which it tours nationally and internationally to traditional theatres and outdoor spaces, Graeae run a large and varied Creative Learning and training programme for emerging, young and mid-career deaf and disabled artists.
Graeae was founded in 1980 [1] by Nabil Shaban, a disabled actor, writer and director, [2] [3] and Richard Tomlinson, a life-long disability advocate. [4] The two met at Herewood College for the Disabled, were Shaban was a student and Tomlinson was a lecturer with a passion for the arts. [4] They named their company after the Graeae of Greek mythology. In 1981 the company was offered the use of an office, rehearsal space and facilities for 18 months by the West End Centre, an Arts Centre in Aldershot in Hampshire. During that year, the Company became eligible to receive full funding from the Arts Council of Great Britain. [5] Graeae are currently a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England. [6]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, while live theatres were closed in the UK, the company produced two series of short video plays written by disabled artists entitled Crips Without Constraints. The first series were monologues while the second series were two-person plays. [7] In March 2021, the company announced that an archival recording of their 2017 co-production of The House of Bernarda Alba with the Royal Exchange Theatre would be made available online for a limited time. [8]
Jenny Sealey MBE has been artistic director and CEO since 1997, [9] [10] [11] and Amit Sharma joined as associate director in 2011. Sharma's first involvement with Graeae was as a participant on an actor training course, set up by Sealey, [12] addressing the lack of deaf and disabled people in theatre. [13] Sealey began her career as a deaf actor but made the transition to directing after applying for a Trainee Director position with the company Interplay. [14] [15] [9] She was awarded an MBE in 2009 for her work around disability in the arts. [16] [9] She also co-directed the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings. [17] [18] [9] Nickie Miles-Wildin took over the role of associate director from Amit Sharma in 2019 and was a performer in the 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. [19]
Actors who have appeared with the company include Nadia Albina, Genevieve Barr, Laurence Clark, Mat Fraser, Beth Hinton-Lever, Arthur Hughes, Cherylee Houston, Aaron Virdee, Melissa Johns, John Kelly, Garry Robson, Nabil Shaban and Kiruna Stamell.
Graeae has produced plays by Jack Thorne, Sarah Kane, Jackie Hagan, Jo Clifford, David Ireland, Kaite O'Reilly, Lorca, Paul Sirett, Glyn Cannon and Sam Boardman-Jacobs.
Graeae has performed at the National Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Soho Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, Dundee Rep, Derby Theatre and Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.
In 1984 the Graeae Theatre Company won a Special Award in the Evening Standard Awards, and has since won numerous awards, including the Promotion of Diversity Award at the UK Theatre Awards 2012. [47] It also won the Euan's Guide Most Accessible Production for Jack Thorne's The Solid Life of Sugar Water at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [48]
Nabil Shaban is a Jordanian-British actor and writer. He co-founded Graeae—a theatre group which promotes disabled performers. He's best known as the recurring villain Sil in Doctor Who.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes – plus those highly commended by the judges – are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
Hereward College is a national further education college specialising in skills for independent living and employment for young people with disabilities and additional needs. It is situated on Bramston Crescent, Tile Hill, Coventry, West Midlands, England and opened in 1972.
Monica Margaret Dolan is an English actress. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult (2011).
The New Wolsey Theatre is a producing theatre with a café & bar in Ipswich, Suffolk. It is a midsized regional theatre, with a seating capacity of 400.
Disability in the arts is an aspect within various arts disciplines of inclusive practices involving disability. It manifests itself in the output and mission of some stage and modern dance performing-arts companies, and as the subject matter of individual works of art, such as the work of specific painters and those who draw.
National Theatre Wales (NTW) is a theatre company known for its large-scale site-specific productions and its grassroots work with diverse Welsh communities. It is the English-language national theatre of Wales, and refers to Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, the Welsh-language national theatre of Wales founded in 2003, as its sister company.
The Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF) is a free annual outdoor performing arts festival, which takes place across East and South East London (Greenwich) every summer. Greenwich+Docklands International Festival was founded by Artistic Director Bradley Hemmings in 1996 and is produced by the charitable organisation Festival.org. The festival brings together a programme of UK and international events taking place across 17 days, encompassing large-scale spectacle, theatre, circus and dance.
Back to Back Theatre is an Australian theatre company that engages with disabilities on stage. The company is based in Geelong, Victoria creating its work nationally and touring around the world. The work produced by the company explores questions about politics, ethics, and philosophy in humanity.
Clean Break is a women's theatre company based in London, focused on telling the stories of imprisoned women.
Theatre and disability is a subject focusing on the inclusion of disability within a theatrical experience, enabling cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts. Showing disabled bodies on stage can be to some extent understood as a political aesthetic as it challenges the predominately abled audience's expectations as well as traditional theatre conventions. However, the performance of disabilities on stage has raised polarizing debates about whether the performers are exposed and reduced to their disability or whether they have full agency of who they are and what they represent.
Kaite O'Reilly FRSL is UK-based playwright, author and dramaturge of Irish descent. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Ted Hughes Award (2011) for her version of Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians. O'Reilly's plays have been performed at venues across the UK and at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has also been shown internationally including in Europe Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. O'Reilly openly identifies as a disabled artist and has spoken of the importance of "identifying socially and politically as disabled" to her work. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Jamie Beddard is one of the UK's leading disabled theatre practitioners. He is a writer, actor, director and workshop leader as well as a trainer and consultant. At present Jamie is co-director of Diverse City, Lead Artist of Extraordinary Bodies, and an Associate Artist at the New Wolsey Theatre.
Darshan Singh Bhuller is a British dancer, teacher, artistic director, filmmaker, and choreographer. Considered "one of the brightest stars of his generation" and a "darkly powerful performer," Bhuller danced for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Siobhan Davies Dance Company, and was assistant director for Richard Alston Dance Company before revitalizing Phoenix Dance Theatre as its artistic director.
Liselle Terret is a co-programme leader and a senior lecturer at the University of East London. She has more than twenty years of experience within the field as a teacher, facilitator and manager of Applied Theatre related projects within and outside of the UK working with a diverse selection of groups.
Arthur Hughes is a British actor known for his roles as Ryan McDaniel in the Netflix series The Innocents and Ruairi Donovan in BBC Radio 4 series The Archers. His stage appearances include the role of Laurent in La Cage aux Folles at the Park Theatre, London, Phil in The Solid Life of Sugar Water with Graeae Theatre Company. and the title role in Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Just For One Day is a jukebox musical written by John O'Farrell, based on the story of the 1985 benefit concert Live Aid. The musical is named after a line in David Bowie's song "Heroes", which he performed at the event.
Kully Thiarai FRSA is an artistic and creative director whose career began in theatre. With her appointment at National Theatre Wales in 2016, she became the first Asian person, and only second woman, to lead a national theatre company in Britain. She has held multiple artistic directorships, including, from 2020 to 2024, the role of creative director for LEEDS 2023 – the city's independent year of culture.
Jenny Sealey MBE is an English theatre director from Nottingham.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
