Multi-award-winning Deafinitely Theatre marks its twentieth anniversary with a special season of events.
It started with James Baldwin’s Getting There which was staged on a bus and toured schools last term and continues with the opening later this month of the world première of Everyday.
Written and directed by Deafinitely artistic director Paula Garfield, it is based on true stories of deaf women and non-binary people experiencing abuse and is presented in the company's signature combination of British Sign Language and English.
Everyday has been commissioned by London's New Diorama Theatre where the play starts previewing on 16 May and then tours to Birmingham Rep, York Theatre Royal and Northern Stage.
Fifi Garfield, Kelsey Gordon, Zoë McWhinney and Bea Webster make up the cast.
Also in their anniversary season is a programme of short films, Talking Hands directed by Paula Garfield.
Produced in association with Paines Plough the five films each look at the deaf experience of the pandemic, they are:
- I Still Blame Myself by Lianne Herbert, starring Kelsey Gordon
- Keeping Hope by Melissa Mostyn starring Nadia Nadarajah
- Lockdown Hairy written and performed by EJ Raymond
- Life, It Goes On by Abigail Gorman, starring Bea Webster
- The Woman I Am written and performed by Samantha Pearsall
Deafinitely Theatre is the UK’s first deaf-led and -launched theatre company, founded in 2002 by Paula Garfield, Steven Webb and Kate Furby.
Since then, it has staged over forty productions including the first British Sign Language Shakespeare play at Shakespeare’s Globe, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and its site specific piece Contractions won the 2018 Off West End Award for Best Production.
Under the artistic directorship of Paula Garfield, who in 2019 received a Tonic Award for her work, Deafinitely Theatre presents and promotes deaf-led theatre, runs a youth theatre for 14- to 21year-olds, Deafinitely Little productions for young people and England’s first fully accessible training programme, HUB, for emerging deaf theatre professionals.