EVERYDAY Will Be Part Of Deafinitely Theatre's 20th Anniversary Season

Artistic Director Paula Garfield today announces the world première of Everyday as part of Deafinitely Theatre's 20th anniversary season - a new play written and directed by Garfield based on interviews conducted with deaf women who have survived domestic abuse. Performed in BSL and spoken English for a deaf and hearing audience, commissioned by New Diorama Theatre opens at the venue on 20 May, with previews from 16 May, and runs until 11 June, ahead of a national tour with venues including Northern Stage.

Also, as part of the 20th anniversary season. the company launch Talking Hands - a series of brand-new digital films highlighting urgent, everyday stories affecting the deaf community. Full details will be announced shortly.

Paula Garfield said today, "We're enormously proud of everything we have achieved over the past 20 years, creating world class theatre accessible to everyone. We begin our 20th anniversary season with Everyday - based on my interviews with deaf women who have survived domestic abuse. It's a vital and necessary conversation, with instances of domestic abuse rising significantly as a result of the lockdowns of the past 18 months. Our intention is to raise awareness about violence against deaf women - an issue prevalent in our community with deaf twice as likely as their hearing peers to suffer domestic abuse, but also to address this important and challenging issue in a sensitive, and ultimately, uplifting manner."

Patron Joanna Lumley added, "This is a fantastic anniversary for Deafinitely Theatre, which has been at the forefront of accessible theatre since its founding as the UK's first deaf led professional theatre company twenty years ago. Its important and ground-breaking bilingual work has delighted deaf and hearing audiences of all ages, won awards and broken barriers. Indispensable training programmes have changed the lives of countless deaf young people and nurtured the next generation of deaf talent. Deafinitely is an invaluable part of the British theatre landscape and the deaf community, who I know will join me in celebrating two decades of inspirational work, with many more to come."

For details on how to support Deafinitely Theatre: https://www.deafinitelytheatre.co.uk/Pages/Appeal/Category/friends-scheme

Four women come together to perform a ritual of community and catharsis. Gathering up true stories of deaf women's experiences of surviving abuse, they form a witches' coven like no other - with a cauldron of newt's eyes and butterflies, deep scars and blazing signs.

A visually-rich, playful and pulsating urgent world première from multi-award-winners Deafinitely Theatre (4.48 Psychosis, Contractions), combining British Sign Language and English in the company's unique bilingual style. Drawing on interviews with women exploring domestic abuse in the deaf community, this is a defiant and empowering new work from nationally-acclaimed director Paula Garfield marking the company's 20th anniversary.

Paula Garfield directs. For Deafinitely Theatre she has also directed 4.48 Psychosis, Horrible Histories - Dreadful Deaf, Contractions - which won the Off West End Award for Best Production, Two Chairs, Motherland, Children of a Greater God, Playing God, Double Sentence and Gold Dust. She also devised and directed The Boy and the Statue for Deafinitely at the Tricycle Theatre and on a London schools' tour. Garfield has directed two productions at Shakespeare's Globe - Love Labour's Lost, for the Globe to Globe Festival as part of Deafinitely's 10th anniversary, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her other directing work includes Tanika's Journey (Southwark Playhouse) Grounded (Park Theatre).

An actor, director, workshop leader and organiser, Garfield has worked on a variety of television, film and theatre projects over the past fifteen years. In 2002 she established Deafinitely Theatre with Steven Webb and Kate Furby after becoming frustrated at the barriers that deaf actors and directors face across the arts and media. She has produced and directed many plays and worked extensively in TV, including Channel Four's Learn Sign Language, Four Fingers and a Thumb, BBC's Hands Up and Casualty, plus appearances in every series of the BBC's deaf drama, Switch.