Cast Revealed For Emma Frankland's GALATEA At Brighton Festival

A vibrant and diverse cast of 14 LGBTQIA+ and Deaf performers will come together to perform Emma Frankland and Subira Joy's adaptation of John Lyly's early modern play Galatea at Brighton Festival, which was written in the 1580s and performed in front of Elizabeth I. Half of the performers are Deaf or speak British Sign Language (BSL) and all performances will be in English and BSL. The production will also feature a choir drawn from members of the local community in Shoreham-on-Sea.

The role of Telusa will be played by Charlotte Arrowsmith (she/her) who has worked with theatre companies including Facefront, Handprint, Deafinitely Theatre, Half Moon and Shakespeare's Globe. Charlotte blazed a trail as the first Deaf BSL actor to work with the RSC, appearing as Cassandra in Troilus and Cressida in 2018 and subsequently as Audrey in As you like it and Curtis in The Taming of the Shrew.

Melebeus will be played by Ralph Bogard (he/him) who has performed everywhere from the West End to the Fringe. His theatre credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe), Nativity! The Musical (Birmingham Rep), Bridgerton (Secret Cinema) and The Process (Bunker Theatre).

Antonia Kemi Coker (she/her) who will play Tityrus, is a performer with over 25 years experience working nationally and internationally in regional and West End theatre, TV film and Radio as well as in I am Kevin and Babel with Wildworks, Young People's theatre, Forum Theatre, Street Theatre, site-specific theatre. Kemi has worked on numerous projects with Chuck Mike's Collective Artistes.

Steve Jacobs (he/him) who plays Neptune has theatre credits which include El Senoir Gallindez at The Gate, Constant Couple, Macbeth and The Tempest at the RSC, School For Scandal at Haymarket and a tour of Brazil with Dudendance. Steve has worked with many Cornish companies including on Wolf's Child, Souterrain and The Passion with Wildworks, Very Old Man With Enormous Wings with Wildworks and Kneehigh, Waiting For Godot with Miracle, and Goodnight Mr Tom with The Minack Company.

Cupid will be played by Wet Mess (they/them) an artist who works across multiple art forms including visual art, drag, dance, theatre, including choreographing videos for Will Young and London Grammar. Recently they were part of Travis Alabanza's Sound of the Underground (Royal Court) which received 5 stars in the Guardian; and winner of Not Another Drag Competition (RVT) 2021

Nadia Nadarajah (she/her) will play Diana. Nadia trained at International Visual Theatre in Paris and with Deafinitely Theatre. She has performed in Maryland and Midnight Movie at The Royal Court Theatre as well as productions at Leeds Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic, Bush Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe and the award Winning Can I Start Again Please with Sue MacLaine Company. Nadia was also part of Meet Me at the Edge (Wildworks) telling her own experience of lockdown as a BSL speaker.

The character Rafe will be played by Richard P. Peralta (they/he), a Deaf, Non Binary, Filipino-American multidisciplinary artist. Recent performances include Much Ado About Nothing (UK tour; Ramps on the Moon, Sheffield Theatres), Ella Hickson's Wendy and Peter Pan (Leeds Playhouse), originating the lead role of Riz in local Hove writer Hilmi Jaidin's musical Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading.

Playing Phillida, Macy-Jacob Seelochan (she/they/he), is an actor, writer, and music producer from Nottingham. MJ's stage credits include Groove (Shoreditch Town Hall), Nevergreen (Arcola Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Nottingham Playhouse) & Dear Elizabeth (Gate Theatre). Screen credits include Shadow & Bone (Netflix), Plaggy Bag (BFI), & 2 self-produced short films, Mundane Living & A Casting Room, the latter being a finalist at Pinewood Studio's Lift-Off Festival and available on YouTube.

Venus will be played by Sophie Stone (she/her) who has performed in numerous productions at the Watermill Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe as well as The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time (NT/Frantic Assembly Tour; Emilia (Shakespeare's Globe/ West End); Jubilee (Lyric, Hammersmith/ Manchester Royal Exchange); The Government Inspector (Birmingham Rep/ UK Tour) and Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre). Sophie is also a writer and Co-Founder of the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble Theatre Company.

Caz Teague (they/them) will play Peter. Creator of the musical project "Caz Smiling" which blends music, spoken word and illustration to communicate ideas around mental health and queer identity. They perform their work regularly at poetry and literary events across the UK and internationally. They are an artist-in-residence at the Vauxhall-based queer cabaret night Bar Wotever and their first poetry collection 'Good Earth' is available from Burning Eye Books.

Femi Tiwo (they/them) will play Galatea. Femi is a queer Nigerian/Togolese multi-disciplinary artist. A Barbican young poet alumni and co-founder of Sistren Collective, their personal work explores ancestral lineages, lost histories and rituals. Recent writing credits include Cab Ride (dir. Femi Tiwo & Ola Jones), Rights For Whom, Exactly? (Fly The Flag/Young Vic); as a Director Sound of The Underground - (Royal Court Theatre) and as a performer Green Thumb (Pentabus Theatre and Ackee and Saltfish (BBC3).

The role of Eurota will be played by Charmaine Wombwell (she/her) who is known for her work in music as well as theatre. She created the dark clown show, Scarlet Shambles: It Used to be Me which has toured nationally and internationally. Her other performance credits include: Burnt Out In Biscuit Land (Touretteshero/CTN); Lilies On The Land (Apollo Theatre national tour); The Masked Ball (Southbank Centre/Unlimited Festival) Going Through (Bush Theatre); Not I (Mouth, performing in BSL) (Touretteshero/Battersea Arts Centre and national tour.

Bea Webster (they/them) will play Hebe. Bea is a Deaf queer neurodiverse non-binary Scottish-Thai actor, writer, access/BSL/caption consultant and drag artist. Bea's recent acting credits include Medea (National Theatre of Scotland), Everyday, Life It Goes On (Deafinitely Theatre), Red (Polka Theatre), The Winter's Tale (Royal Shakespeare Company). Bea was nominated for Best Actor at the Stage Debut Awards 2019 for their role in Mother Courage and Her Children (Red Ladder/Leeds Playhouse).

Ashleigh Wilder (they/he) is a Black trans masculine actor-poet-thinker from Yorkshire. They delight in speaking about the unspoken, and as a disabled activist channel multiple disciplines into creating art, facilitating workshops, and educating. Acting credits include: Macbeth (Leeds Playhouse), Brassic (Sky Max), The hatterleys (BBC R4), The Film We Can't See (BBC Sounds) and Left Behind (Sky Arts).

Galatea will see the work of Shakespeare's best-selling but now long forgotten contemporary John Lyly brought vividly to life in a field on the South Coast in a radical revival of Galatea. The production fuses together groundbreaking research and experimental theatre and will be co-directed and designed by Mydd Pharo of Cornish landscape theatre company Wildworks, edited by theatre historian Andy Kesson and presented by Marlborough Productions.

Set in a world where gods walk among the mortals, this unapologetically queer story follows different characters - all lost in the woods. Two young trans people find love whilst escaping oppression; a shipwrecked migrant searches for his family; goddesses clash; parents fret; an alchemist brews magic and a teenage Cupid sets hearts on fire - causing chaos and near disaster.

Galatea is an ambitious collaboration between queer theatre maker Emma Frankland, LGBTQIA+ culture catalysts Marlborough Productions, Wildworks and the brand new research project Diverse Alarums, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This new version of Galatea has been commissioned by Brighton Festival and will be presented outdoors at a large scale, with a vibrant, large cast of LGBTQIA+ and Deaf performers, in nearby Shoreham-by-Sea. Members of the local community will be invited to join the performance through a process led by Wildworks, who bring 20 years experience of working in the landscape and creating work with community participants.