Between 2016-2020, I’ve organised three plays in London, Nottingham and Edinburgh that have focused on recovering and amplifying the testimony of African Americans in the British Isles.
In 2016, I worked with actors Tok Stephen and James Lawrence to recreate an antislavery meeting between Frederick Douglass and George Thompson - I wrote this script based on testimony I had transcribed from the Victorian press. I was fortunate to have funding from the British Library to complete this.
In 2017, I co-wrote a script with Matthew Chesney (BACKLIT Art Gallery) to celebrate the interracial friendship between Josiah Henson and Samuel Morley. We staged the play at Matthew’s studio, BACKLIT, to a crowded audience, and we were once again lucky to receive funding from Midlands 3 Cities, BAAS and the University of Nottingham.
In 2018, I worked with Arun Sood to co-write and co-organise a performance entitled ‘Send Back the Money!’, focusing on Frederick Douglass’ campaign in Scotland. This was performed in Edinburgh on the site of one of Douglass’ speeches, and was a fantastic evening of performance, folk songs, and talks.
One of the performances was professionally filmed, and can be viewed here