What are the themes of your play?
Dreaming and Drowning is a play about anxiety, race, and relationships. It’s a love story, a ghost story, and a coming of age story. It’s about our nightmares and our dreams. It’s about fighting for survival and finding your voice.
Why did you write it and why now?
In Autumn 2020, I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers’ Group 2020-2021, after submitting my play RESIST into their Open Submissions. I began writing Dreaming and Drowning during my time in the group and have continued to develop it since. I wanted to write a play which utilises fantasy to explore what it means to be a young Black person, trying to find community and love, whilst navigating structural and interpersonal obstacles.
Which playwrights are you influenced by and in what way?
I’m influenced by playwrights such as debbie tucker green, Branden Jacob-Jenkins, Alistair McDowall, and Caryl Churchill. I’m incredibly inspired by the ways in which they craft plays of gripping storytelling, structural ingenuity, political urgency, vivid language, and an electrifying spirit of theatrical and formal innovation.
What do you want to achieve as a playwright?
I hope to write plays which embrace theatricality and form to tell bold, thrilling and imaginative stories about what it means to survive and be alive in the world today.