Digital Programme: The Acts

Running time: 2 hours (including a 20 minute interval)

Age guidance: 16+

Content
This event contains haze, adult themes, strong language and depictions of cancer. For more information about the content of this production, please visit our content advice and resources page. 

Accessibility
All performances are relaxed and have integrated audio description, BSL-interpretation and captioning. 

Please note that a cast member of The Acts has a severe animal allergy. Due to this, please leave your service or emotional support animal with our front of house team in the Pit Foyer during the show. For more information, please contact a member of box office on 020 7870 2500.

The Acts has been made possible with the support of Arts Council England and the Barbican Centre.

To Rose On Her 18th Birthday is supported by Kiln Theatre, HighTide, Peggy Ramsay Foundation and Arts Council England.

Rehearsal images by Shona Louise.

Act 1: Autistic As Fuck

Stephen Bailey for ASYLUM Arts
Writer
ASYLUM Arts is a CiC company that creates opportunities and platforms neurodivergent and disabled artists. We make work that reinterprets and critiques social perceptions of disability and neurodivergence – subverting mainstream narratives and expectations of disabled-art. ASYLUM works in a collaborative format – centralising different artists dependent on the project. 

Previous credits include Surfacing (**** Londontheatre1, VAULT Origins Nominee) which will tour nationally in 2024; creative producing the development, VAULT run and Soho run of FlawBored's It's a Motherf**king Pleasure (***** The Times, Untapped Award Winner); Who Plays Who: a comedic critique of cripping up (Barbican Centre, closed Liberty Festival 2022; Covered in Jam's That's Not My Name which mixes cabaret with structured facilitated discussion to explore the effects of receiving diagnoses of personality disorder (***** National Tour). We also run training schemes and have provided mentoring to various neurodivergent artists.

Evlyne Oyedokun
Performer
Evlyne Oyedokun is a half-Nigerian, half-Dominican, Autistic, working-class actress, born and raised in London. She trained at RADA. Work in theatre includes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic; The Cherry Orchard at Nottingham Playhouse; Julius Caesar for the RSC; A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Tobacco Factory; One Under for Graeae on tour and at the Arcola; An Inspector Calls on UK tour; Cinderella for Northern Stage; and the forthcoming Blackbird Hour for Vital Xposure at the Bush, followed by a regional tour in 2025. On screen: a supporting lead in the feature RIPD2, Kirkmoore and Kisses and Bumflicks. Radio includes: Fire in the Bookshop, The Fight of the Century and The Garden Centre.

Kat Dulfer
Performer
Kat Dulfer is a theatre and screen actor, who graduated from LAMDA. She is autistic and has Tourette’s syndrome. Previous theatre includes The Importance of Being Earnest at Chelsea Theatre; Bottled Dreams of Better Days at the Marlowe Theatre; and The Access Platform for VAULT Festival. TV includes Beyond Paradise.

Theo Angel
Performer
Theo Angel is a non-binary, mixed race, disabled actor and writer. Their work focuses on the line between identities and how people who are ‘a bit of both’ can find their communities. As an actor they’ve worked on screen for Netflix, HBO, BBC and Sky. As a writer, their work has appeared in magazines including Şerābi and 101 contemporary artists and more.

Act 2: Over the Moon

Peyvand Sadeghian
Writer and Performer
Peyvand Sadeghian is a neurodivergent performer and maker from and living in London, who works across stage and screen. A Goldsmiths College alum and ex-National Youth Theatre GB member, she is an Associate Artist with Camden People’s Theatre, Nouveau Riche and Tamasha, and has undertaken residencies with Barbican Open Lab and artsdepot, through which she’s evolving a multi-disciplinary practice with performance at its core. Previous work includes: Dual دوگانه on UK tour (VAULT Festival 2020 Show of the Week; Keep it Fringe 2023 recipient); The Art of Uprising, a short film commissioned by MENA Arts; and the monologue Restless for Terrifying Women.

Matthew Robinson
Writer and Performer
Matthew Robinson is a neurodivergent visual artist whose experience spans teaching, filmmaking and screen arts, with a particular focus on experimental film and narrative theory. During an arts fellowship and residency in Berlin at Z/KU Center for Art and Urbanistics, he co-created the Baden Projekt, a series of installations that combined documentary and projection to create an immersive sensory experience exploring perspectives of nature and the city through the changing state of water and its impact on wellbeing. Other work includes Glacial Waters, a Goethe Institut and EU creative commission, which exhibited at Art Bat Fest in Kazakhstan. Glacial Waters is an experimental film installation using holographic multi-channel projections exploring global warming and the importance of waters from the Bogdanovich Glacier to the city of Almaty.

Act 3: To Rose On Her 18th Birthday

Alli (A C) Smith (she/her)
Writer and Performer
A C Smith is a playwright and songwriter who has won awards from the RSC and Soho Theatre. She has previously developed work with the Bush Theatre, HighTide, the Old Vic and RADA. She explores the boundary between real life and art, and has a specialism in cross-medium experimentation, collaborating regularly with artists from the worlds of dance, photography, mime, and film. Notable work includes: The Bomb for radio; Lock and Key at VAULT Festival; and Dream Queen at Shakespeare’s Globe. She is a co-founder of London Playwrights' Workshop and the Women's Musical Theatre Initiative. She is a two-time survivor of breast cancer who was originally raised in Colorado and lives in London with her husband and young daughter. 
www.ac-smith.com.

Act 4: PostHuman

Rachel Gadsden (she/her)
Creator and Performer
Rachel Gadsden is a leading British visual and performance artist and disability cultural activist who exhibits and performs her art nationally and internationally. Expressionist in approach, she creates solo exhibitions, performances and collaborative social engagement art projects with disabled, vulnerable and mainstream communities, with the object of developing cross-cultural dialogues considering universal notions of humanity.

Her work has been funded by public arts organisations including Arts Council England, Arts Council Cymru, British Council Arts and Unlimited, and her artworks are represented in private and major art collections in the UK and abroad, including HM The King’s Royal Art Collection, UK Parliament, Mandela’s Walk to Freedom, SA, Fédération Internationale de Football Association Switzerland, The National Paralympic Heritage Trust, Hyundai, South Korea and Roche, Switzerland. Rachel Gadsden has received major award commissions for five Paralympic Games – Beijing, London, Sochi and Brazil and Tokyo – and has undertaken four commissions for UK Parliament. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from London South Bank University in 2016.

rachelgadsden.com

Freddie Meyers
Composer and Performer
Freddie Meyers is a conductor, composer and educator whose work is situated in exploring the ever-shifting notion of time, delay and communication in artistic creation. This process emerged out of music-making opportunities during the pandemic and, from 2020-2022, he directed an internet-based ensemble called Bandwidth that was dedicated to exploring the implications of latency on performance practice. His ongoing collaborations with the artist Rachel Gadsden exemplify this and explore means of communications both within the creative process and outwardly with our audiences.

Freddie Meyers gained a distinction in an MMus in Composition from the Royal Academy of Music in 2020 and completed a BA (Hons.) in music (2015-2018) from St Hilda’s College, Oxford. He was composer-in-residence at Eton College from 2021-2023 and is now an academic music teacher at The Yehudi Menuhin School.

freddiemeyers.com
 

Additional performers

Sahera Khan
Performer
Sahera Khan is a Deaf and BSL artist/actor. She also works in poetry, storytelling, devising, content creation and filmmaking.

Acting for screen includes Edicius (short film, 2022 Academy Award and BAFTA qualified); Dua and Angèle’s Fever (music video); roles in BSL Zone’s Four Deaf Yorkshiremen Go Dating; and He Stood Me Up. She was also in Channel 4's Inclusion Festival 2022.

Work on stage includes: The Throwaways (for Lambert and Jackson) and I’m Possible Not Impossible (for Moxie Brawl and Tramshed) at the Victoria and Albert Museum; and her storytelling show, The Cockerel and the Fox. She also performs her own poems. Published poetry includes I Don’t Care If It is Repeat (Modern Poetry in Translation) and My Eyes (Disabled Poets’ Prize 2024).

Her short documentary, My Glow, selected by BISFF (Academy Award and BAFTA qualified), is a story about a Deaf, Muslim mother who shares her pregnancy journey through the pandemic.

Her published books include Sahera: Short Poetry & Stories. She has also created videos for YouTube, and wrote and produced the short films Bond and Faith.

Anna Kitson (she/they)
Performer and Integrated BSL Performance Interpreter
Anna Kitson is a London-based performer, writer and sign language interpreter. She has a wide range of experience as an actor and performing in BSL within theatre, film and TV. Her most recent credits include English at the RSC and Kiln; and Deaf Awakening at New Wolsey, Key Theatre and Derby Theatre. Film credits include The Baby Question.

Creative team

Jamie Hale (they/them)
Director
Jamie Hale is an award-winning theatre maker, poet, (screen)writer, charity CEO and founder and Artistic Director at CRIPtic Arts. Their work focuses on crip- and queer- realities, and the urgency of living as a disabled person.

Verve Poetry Press published their first poetry pamphlet, Shield, in 2021. Jack Thorne read from it in the 2021 MacTaggart lecture, describing them as an ‘extraordinary voice’. Hannah Gadsby described their solo film, NOT DYING, as ‘fantastic’.

In 2021, they were awarded the Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, won Director/Theatremaker of the Year Award in the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Awards, and were listed in the Disability Power 100 as one of the hundred most influential disabled people in Britain. They also directed the sell-out 2021 CRIPtic Showcase. 

Jamie Hale is working on their first poetry collection, building CRIPtic Arts and developing their TV series with Channel 4.

Phoebe Kemp (they/them) 
Movement Director
Phoebe Kemp is a director, creative access consultant, movement director and workshop facilitator based in Bristol. They make political work infused with joy and hope. As a queer, neurodivergent, wheelchair user, they are passionate about making accessible work – from sensory theatre for PMLD audiences to embedded audio description and BSL, and telling stories that have often been underrepresented on the stage. This includes new writing, devised work and reimagining of classic texts. Phoebe Kemp is a 2023 graduate of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s MA Drama Directing Course.

Rudzani Moleya (she/they)
Assistant Director
Rudzani Moleya is a multi/interdisciplinary performing artist, movement director and facilitator from South Africa.

Layered in their practice is how we define identity, in relation to self and others (other, in relation to people, objects and nature). She uses movement which is informed by water, somatics and improvisational movement.

Rudzani Moleya is currently exploring the body as a living archive and how movement can be used as a porthole to healing.

Damien Stanton (he/him)
Set and Costume Designer
Damien is a London-based designer for stage and live events. Recent design work includes: 

Wonderland in Alice at Octagon Bolton and Theatre Peckham; Brainiac Live at Marylebone Theatre and Dubai Opera House; Hamstrung at the Pleasance; Spectrum Roundel and Poster Chandelier at Transport for London; Stephen Mulhern – Beyond Belief on UK tour; PaddingtonTM LoComotion at Blenheim Palace; Peter RabbitTM Easter Adventure in

Covent Garden; Radium Girls at Rose Bruford; VAULT Festival 2023; For a Brief

Moment at VAULT Festival; Energy Science for Mishkat Riyadh; Lisbon Floor at Copenhagen Opera Festival 2022; and Peter RabbitTM Garden Adventure at Blenheim Palace. 

He is the recipient of the Stage Award for Innovation in Theatre and was on The Stage 100 for his work co-founding and running the Theatre Support Fund+ during the Covid-19 pandemic and their ‘The Show Must Go On!’ campaign which went on to raise over £1million for those facing financial hardship in the  industry.

Damien Stanton is passionate about raising awareness for neurodiverse artists and creatives working and living with neurodisabilities in our industry and the extraordinary work they create.

Oliver Vibrans (he/they)
Sound Designer
Oliver Vibrans is an Ivor Novello Award-winning composer, producer and sound designer based in the UK who has composed music for the concert hall, theatre, film, art installations and radio. 

olivervibranscomposer.com

Rachel Sampley (she/her)
Caption Designer
Rachel Sampley is a London-based lighting and video designer, whose work includes dance, theatre and music. She is driven by a love of visual storytelling, and this is at the heart of her design process.

She has a background in accessible theatre and doesn't understand why there isn't more of it. She makes creative captions for many projects and frequently collaborates with the DH Ensemble (The Deaf and Hearing Ensemble). She has extensive experience in immersive theatre, putting on shows in unusual locations. As such, she often makes bespoke lighting sources and is intrigued by building unexpected things. 

She has a BFA in Theatre Design & Technology from The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) and an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. 

David Ellington (he/him)
BSL Consultant
David Ellington’s roles have been diverse, including film, theatre, and television drama and presenting since 1997. He has always enjoyed creative works including TV and film making projects and theatre workshop projects and also supported ALRA in running a theatre course for Deaf students. 

Work on film and TV include an accessible advert for The Last Leg, a Paralympics accessible advert, Small World, Otherside, Game of a Life, Stand By Your Ma, I'm Spaziticus – The Comedy Lab, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Holby City.

Theatre includes Frozen for Fingersmiths; Paralympic Opening Ceremony, The Garden and Against the Tide with Strange Fruit and Graeae; Bent and Diary of an Action Man for Graeae; and Under Milk Wood for the Oxfordshire Theatre Tour Company. Circus art and street theatre experience includes Extraordinary Bodies – What Am I Worth and Weighting  for Diverse City and Cirque Bijou.

Caitlin Richards (she/her)
Producer
Caitlin Richards is a producer and proud working-class Northerner, with six years experience making events and shows happen.. 

She started her career in special events and fundraising in the charity sector. She has worked for the Royal Horticultural Society, the British Red Cross, RADA and English National Ballet as well as in raising funds for cultural, environmental and humanitarian causes.

She moved into producing in 2021, co-producing the 2021 CRIPtic Showcase and development programme, before producing comedy at one of London’s leading comedy clubs. She has been with CRIPtic Arts as Lead Producer since 2021. Here, she works to create opportunities and outstanding theatre alongside deaf and disabled creatives. This included producing the R&D and performances for Jamie Hale’s solo show, NOT DYING. 

Jack Wakely (they/them)
Development Producer
Jack Wakely grew up in the West Country, but has lived and worked in London since 2008. They graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London with a First Class degree in Drama & Theatre Arts (BA Hons). Jack Wakely is an advocate for recognising gender diversity, disability and neurodiversity within the arts.

They have been Co-Artistic Director of the award-winning Silent Faces Theatre since the company was founded in 2015, making brave, ridiculous, unique and challenging devised theatre. They are also founding ensemble member of Degenerate Fox (AKA the London Neo-Futurists), writing, directing and performing in The Dirty Thirty, a fortnightly outing of an ever-changing menu of 30 original plays, performed in one hour, against the clock.

From a background of self-producing work with both Silent Faces and Degenerate Fox, Jack Wakely went on to work as Producer and Project Manager at Open Door and Producer at Cardboard Citizens. As a creative producer, they’re focused on producing work with a social purpose, as well as supporting marginalised artists to tell stories.

Stella Kailides (she/her)
Stage Manager
Since graduating from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2015, Stella Kailides has managed a large number of productions, ranging from site-specific and outdoor arts to traditional theatre and dance, across various roles including stage, technical, project and production management, with a consistent focus on navigating the complexities of bringing a show from concept to stage.

She has worked in diverse settings including prisons, schools, psychiatric hospitals, leisure centres, outdoor sites and traditional theatres, collaborating closely with local communities, the general public and trained professionals across multiple sectors. Over the past few years, she has worked with disability-led organisations.

She is a passionate advocate for making the arts more sustainable and inclusive and dedicated to driving positive change within the arts community, while ensuring that creativity flourishes.