Artistic Director Paula Garfield announces programming for Deafinitely Theatre’s 2025 season, with a continuing focus on championing deaf talent through bilingual productions in British Sign Language and spoken English.
The season opens with a UK tour of The Vagina Monologues by V (formerly Eve Ensler), directed by Garfield. Following a sold-out special charity gala performance at Hackney Empire in 2023, Garfield adapts the production for a brand new tour opening at Exeter Northcott Theatre on 15 July before performances at Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and The Rep, Birmingham.
This autumn the company will stage Eloise Pennycott’s Barrier(s), also directed by Garfield. The production opens at The Rep, Birmingham from 18 - 25 October, before touring to HOME, Manchester and Camden People’s Theatre – where it will feature in the inaugural season of new Artistic Director Rio Matchett.
Paula Garfield, Artistic Director of Deafinitely Theatre, said, “I’m so proud to share our 2025 season with audiences across the UK. This year, we’re celebrating the strength, creativity and voices of deaf women through two powerful productions, The Vagina Monologues by V and Barrier(s) by Eloise Pennycott. This season reflects our passion for championing deaf talent on stage, behind the scenes and across our wider community. From a well-loved classic reimagined in BSL to a brand new play by an emerging deaf writer, we can’t wait to share these stories with you. Please come and be part of it.”
Deafinitely Theatre presents
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES
By V
Directed by Paula Garfield
Deafinitely Theatre brings The Vagina Monologues by V (formerly Eve Ensler) to life in BSL and Spoken English, directed by Paula Garfield. Featuring a cast of deaf and hearing women and non-binary people from all walks of life, the show captivated audiences with a sold-out performance at Hackney Empire in 2023. Now embarking on a UK tour, this extraordinary production is back.
Written 20 years ago, The Vagina Monologues is based on writer V’s “Vagina Interviews” conducted with 100 women all around the world. This collection of funny, lively and emotional monologues represents the untold experiences of women in a powerful theatrical experience that remains an unmissable celebration of womanhood and sexuality.
V is a Tony Award winning playwright and author. Her other plays include Dear Everything (Terminal 5), The Kindness (Facebook Live), Fruit Trilogy (Lucille Lortel Theatre), OPC (American Repertory Theatre), In the Body of the World (Manhattan Theatre Club and American Repertory Theatre), Emotional Creature (Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Roda Theatre, Pershing Square Signature Centre), Extraordinary Measures (Manhattan Theatre Club), The Good Body (The American Conservatory Theatre, Booth Theatre, US tour), and Lemonade (Alley Theatre, Necessary Targets (Harford Stage). Her books credits include Reckoning, I Am An Emotional Creature, The Apology and Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir. Film credits include Mad Max: Fury Road, What I Want My Words to Do to You, and The Vagina Monologues.
Paula Garfield directs. For Deafinitely Theatre she has also directed The Promise, Something Else, Can Bears Ski? Everyday, 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) and Grounded (Park Theatre).
An actor, director and field creative leader, she has worked on a variety of television, film and theatre projects over the past twenty 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 industry. 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.
Paula was also awarded the Tonic Award for her work at Deafinitely Theatre.
Through the pandemic, Deafinitiely Theatre provided 26 creative bursaries to support the development of freelance deaf artists. Throughout lockdown, Garfield directed the five Deafinitely Digital films that made up the Talking Hands series, a collaboration with Paines Plough, as well as writing Everyday, Deafinitely Theatre’s 20th anniversary production, which premiered at New Diorama Theatre before its national tour in 2022.
Deafinitely Theatre, Birmingham Rep, Camden Peoples’s Theatre and Leeds Playhouse present
BARRIERS
By Eloise Pennycott
Directed by Paula Garfield
Love has no single language.
Alana and Katie come from different worlds. One is hearing, one is deaf. Together, they navigate the joys and struggles of love, communication and survival in a world that keeps putting up barriers. When the world tries to silence you, how can you hold on to love?
Eloise Pennycott’s Barrier(s) is a powerful and intimate love story. Full of warmth, humour and the fight to be understood. Critically acclaimed for its honesty and gripping storytelling, Barrier(s) is a theatrical experience that speaks volumes – even without words.
Eloise Pennycott, the writer of Barrier(s), says ‘I really hope it ignites a conversation about the stories we allow people to tell of us, but most of all the stories we tell about ourselves’
Eloise Pennycott is a playwright, actor and theatre maker who made her writing debut at the National Theatre in 2022, with Barrier(s) which won the National Theatre’s New Views competition. Her other plays include Butterflies (Deafinitely Theatre Young Company) and More… Ghost Stories by Candlelight (HighTide, East of England Tour, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse). As an actor, she is best known for playing Daisy on BBC’s Phoenix Rise, her other acting credits include The Power, Lord of the Flies (Leeds Playhouse) and Cymbeline (Shakespeare’s Globe Young Company).
