Reach
Supporting 5 emerging deaf and disabled creatives to develop solo shows.
Reach supports five disabled artists to develop their first full solo show through a 6 month programme of online workshops, masterclasses, and facilitated critical feedback groups. The programme culminates in a two day in person residential where writers work with each other and a director to shape the final pieces. We hope to open applications for Reach 2025 at the end of 2024.
2024 Reach Artists
Arden Fitzroy
Arden Fitzroy is an award-winning actor, producer, and writer. They believe in experimentation and blurring the boundaries of genre, gender and art forms. They trained at Rose Bruford College. Credits include work with the Old Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Arcola, Bestival, Roundhouse, the Hackney Empire, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and the Soho Theatre. They have sat on judging panels for the British Fantasy Awards and are a frequent guest on pop culture podcasts. They have also written for film, theatre, and audio.
Fannie Marion
Fannie Marion is an autistic playwright, performer and dramaturg. She recently graduated from the Royal
Central School of Speech and Drama, and is alumni of Soho Writer’s Lab.
The Spiders’ Daughter
My play The Spider’s Daughter is a one woman, darkly comic show written about strained mothers and daughters, the generational trauma of women, and cannibalism. It explores the delicate balance of protection and destruction in mother-daughter relationships, and what that means for the next
generation of women.
Ozioma Ihesiene
Ozioma Ihesiene is a multifaceted creative in Acting, Writing and Directing. Her writing background evolved through streams of consciousness, producing her first memoir-styled piece for The PitchFanzine. Following this, Ozioma collaborated with DYSPLA, exploring colonisation & women, producing her poem, “Domestics.” She then progressed to creating a picture book anthology that was exhibited in Kenya as part of the “5lens” collective. Her work, “Prayer”, is displayed on billboards across the UK, after winning Pocc’s competition. Recently she proposed, led and secured funding and support from Purple Moon Drama and Hackney Empire for her writersroom of 6 black females including herself,
called the Trilogy Series Writer’s Room. They collectively produced a pilot in only 3 days! Ozioma adapted and directed the show for a live reading showcase at The Space Theatre.
Jokes on You
Ozioma Ihesiene is extremely excited to be a part of the Reach programme as this would be the first time she has written a play, let alone a one-woman play! Her play is heavily influenced by her upbringing as she often mocked her culture until she finally experienced the beauty of it. Jokes on You is an adventurous comedy that explores being an immigrant in your own country. We embark on the journey of a stubborn girl who on her 25th Birthday, we see her set off for what was intended as a family holiday, only to arrive on her ones. Her parents abandoned her in an experimental treasure hunt to find them in…. NIGERIA?! AKA Home.
Dan McIntyre
Dan McIntyre is a novelist, travel writer, blogger, and disability rights activist. Originally from West Yorkshire, Dan now lives in East Ayrshire with his Fiancée. Having worked in IT support within the NHS for 25 years, Dan had to take ill-health retirement in 2022 and now spends his time pursuing his love of writing.
When not writing, Dan enjoys travelling, reading, photography and musical theatre, and has performed on stage. He is also partial to a challenge or two and has leaped off the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle on a zip line across the river, completed the Edinburgh marathon and climbed the stairs in Yorkshire’s tallest building, all from his wheelchair.
Title TBC
A sometimes comedic, sometimes serious show about the adventures of a disabled IT service desk worker who takes phone calls from IT users who tell them their technological woes and after fixing the issue described then breaks the fourth wall to reveal to the audience what is really on their mind, some of which will be humorous and some serious.
The character’s multiple disabilities will come into play incidentally in order to make various points about disabled people in work and to normalise the vision of disabled people working in professional roles.
Originally intended to become a sit-com for TV, I have some ideas about adapting this for the stage, and for the solo character aspect. The hope is to make it an enjoyable and teachable show, and not a bit like The IT Crowd.
Rachel Baker
I am a Birmingham based comedian, performer and writer. At the heart of all I do is comedy. I think all the best stories are told with humour. I work with a lot of community organisations and grass-roots projects. I love seeing how micro-changes are created and these can have brilliant knock-on impacts.
Accessibility is hugely important in the work I make or am a part of. Being a neurodiverse, working class person I am aware of how integral it is to view accessibility intersectionally in order to understand what barriers their are for people. My long-standing aim for my career is to use comedy in all forms to have an impact on the arts sector and leave it more accessible and welcoming than when I first started my career.
Sloth
It took me 7 years to complete my 3-year BA degree. I finally finished it dressed as a 7 foot sloth, running 10k to hand in my dissertation. Embodying the misconceptions of ADHD, to be slow and lazy, but flipping it to display how taking my time and learning about my neurodivergence was the best thing I chose to do. Sloth is about this unconventional and messy journey, told through clowning, storytelling and stand- up. Its silly, odd and cheeky. When I ran as the inflatable Sloth it sparked peoples interests and they wanted to know the story behind it.
I figured it is a wonderful way to illuminate the misconceptions with ADHD whilst also focusing on the bizarre and the funny. All work I produce wether that is art, short-films or my writing and performance has comedy at the heart of it. Humour is an integral part to me leading a happy life so for me it is without a doubt that it will be integral to anything that I create.
Previous Reach Artists
Marcella Rick
Marcella is a theater maker, poet and storyteller. Their work is unapologetically Scouse and queer, with accessibility at it’s heart. As a neurodivergent creative, Marcella works to find exciting ways of integrating inclusion into their work, whether this is through creative captioning methods, or audio-descriptive dildos, they are inspired by the creative avenues that accessible theatre can open up.
Sober Curious
Sober Curious invites you into the brain of Jay, as they endeavor upon on their first ever sober night out. As a queer person, sobriety is hard. As a neuodivergent person, sobriety feels impossible. As someone who wants to stop being a show, sobriety might be necessary. It’s not that Jay is an alcoholic, not technically. Alcohol just makes everything easier. That is, until it doesn’t.
Britny Virginia
I am a writer, poet, director, producer and workshop facilitator. Hoping to change the world one story at a time.
Up in the Mango Trees
Having one R&D at Theatre Peckham (2021), it explores movement, dance culture in the Caribbean, disability and religion. I am interested in exploring the restrictive movement caused by disability and paralleling that to the restrictive and paralysing views of society and internal trauma steaming from negative body image as a disabled person with Cerebral Palsy. Using combat movements within a dance sequence and aerial technique to show the internal fight against ableism and considering solace in one’s belief system.
I also want to address the social politics of disability in St. Lucian culture. As dance culture is integral to the St Lucian community, I want to explore how the disabled community fit within dance culture and create original music. I want to produce a high-quality narrative on my experience of disability as a St. Lucian.
Terri Jade Donovan
Terri is a disabled, hard of hearing and neurodivergent actor and writer from Stockport. A graduate of the BA Acting programme at the Lir Academy in 2021. Recent Acting credits include working with Northern Broadsides, Theatre By the Lake and Graeae Theatre Company. As a writer they are currently part of Pentabus’ 2023 National Young Writers Cohort. They are a member of the West End’s Jermyn Street Theatre’s Advisory Board.
DOG DOG DOG
DOG,DOG,DOG is a physical theatre show which tells the story of a 12 year old girl (DOG) who has stolen the family Dog and ran away to the local vet to find out if she herself is turning into a Dog.
DOG, DOG, DOG is an absurdist physical theatre play which while using comedy as a device explores the hyper-sexualisation of young bodies, trauma responses and what it means to be so dehumanized you can no longer see yourself as a real person.
Gemma Lees
Gemma Lees is a Romany Gypsy, disabled and neurodiverse artist, poet, actor, facilitator and theatre-maker from Bury. In her work, she seeks to create experiences for her audiences that will make them laugh until they cry or cry until they act.
Rollercoaster Dai
I want to create a fictional solo show with poetry, mime, song and silent film-style captions, based on the original Romany Gypsy fortune-telling women of Blackpool, the Petulengros.
Elspeth Wilson
Elspeth Wilson is a writer and poet who is interested in exploring the limitations and possibilities of the body through writing, as well as writing about joy and happiness from a marginalised perspective. Her nature has been shortlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd Prize and Penguin’s Write Now scheme. She can usually be found in or near the sea.
Unnamed Show
I’m really excited to be working with CRIPtic on a performance that uses fanfiction and pop culture to explore the fantasy of diagnosis. My play explores a woman trying to obtain a diagnosis for a variety of symptoms and the barriers that she faces, as well as her fantasies of an easy, life-changing diagnosis. I will use my inter-disciplinary creative practice to explore diagnosis in a way that blends genres and uses different artforms to consider a quest that affects almost everybody at some point in their lives. My work takes in care, intimacy and categorisation whilst retaining a lightness of touch that explores joy in the cracks, too.
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