Jen Harvie interviews Mojisola Adebayo on writing for Palestine plus Q and A
On the Stage Left podcast, Jen Harvie interviews artists and companies about their approaches to making performance - how they make it, why they make it, and why they make it the ways they do. Launched in 2017, Stage Left’s interviewees have included Split Britches, Sh!t Theatre, Selina Thompson, Krishna Istha, Lucy McCormick, Breach Theatre, and Reverend Billy. The podcast has had a hiatus, and this double bill live event brings it back strong, with interviews with QMUL Drama colleagues playwright Mojisola Adebayo on her playwriting for Palestine (5:30-6:25pm) and live artist Martin O’Brien on his work (6:45-7:45pm). Interviews will be followed by opportunities for audiences to ask their own questions of the artists. Please join us to hear from these brilliant artists about practices of political resistance in their work. Produced by Debbie Kilbride.
Jen Harvie is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at QMUL. Her publications on performance-making include Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes and the artists’ edited collections The Only Way Home Is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver and Scottee: I Made It. She has done consultancy and dramaturgy with artists including Lucy McCormick, Cade & MacAskill, and Lisa Gornick. In 2017, she founded the podcast Stage Left on which she has interviewed artists and companies including Krishna Istha, Breach Theatre and Reverend Billy. The podcast has had a hiatus, and this live event brings it back.
Mojisola Adebayo is a playwright, performer, director, producer and facilitator and Professor at QMUL. Trained in Theatre of the Oppressed, Mojisola has been creating theatre for over 30 years, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. Her published plays include Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey (Lyric Hammersmith), Muhammad Ali and Me (Ovalhouse), Oranges and Stones (Ashtar Theatre), I Stand Corrected (Artscape), The Interrogation of Sandra Bland (Bush Theatre), Wind/Rush Generation(s) (National Theatre) and the award-winning Family Tree (ATC) and STARS (Tamasha) - coming to BrixtonHouse in June 2025! Publications include Afriquia Theatre: Black British Plays and Practitioners (with Lynette Goddard).
STARS tells the story of an old lady who goes into space in search of her own orgasm. STARS deals with non-consensual gender-based surgeries and the power and politics of pleasure.
Oranges and Stones, co-created with Ashtar Theatre, is a play without words which offers a picture of occupation. A woman lives alone in her home, a man walks, carrying a suitcase, she has no idea who he is, he starts to unpack and move in.
resisters explores non-violent creative forms of resistance to occupation, war and genocide by women and queer people, inspired by Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore during WW2 and women in Palestine today. A young queer woman artist decides to resist the occupation by occupying her own toilet.