Guest Blog: 'We Need Other People': Writer and Actor Rosie Day on The Importance of Connection and Her New Play (THIS IS NOT A) HAPPY ROOM

Rosie Day is a playwright and actor, starring in the world premiere of (This is not a) Happy Room opening at the King's Head Theatre later this month. Rosie was the writer and original performer in Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon, which had its West End run last year with Charithra Chandran leading, and is now being developed for television.

In this Guest Blog for BroadwayWorld, Rosie talks about the ever-increasing challenges to those working in the entertainment industry, isolation and the need for connection among young actors.

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In the past few years, the entertainment industry has faced unprecedented struggles: multiple lockdowns, vital strikes, and then LA literally burnt down. If someone defrosts a T-Rex and puts it on stage at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. What started as ‘survive to 2025’ has now turned into ‘in the mix in ‘26’ and ‘by ‘27’ I’ll be in heaven’. It’s never been tougher to be an actor. 

I say this as someone who is seeing this from both the outside and inside, the more I write, the more I see inside the casting process and how much it has had to change to survive. Casting directors are the unsung heroes of our industry, and they’ve had to adapt to what is being asked of them. 

In this I worry about our young actors and their mental health. The graduates, the young people just starting out trying to build a career. When I think about being 21, it all seemed so easy, it was multiple auditions in the room most weeks - it was knowing my peers, it was a gang of young women helping each other out and sharing information and generally having a lot of fun fuelled by coffee, printer ink, and group texts to see who’d got recalled. 

Working on plays this year and last, and currently my own, (This is not a) Happy Room, I am floored by graduating actors’ enthusiasm, passion, and dedication in the face of an industry that’s been on its knees post-Covid. 

One actor, having graduated two years prior, had only had one in-person audition, even for theatre, the rest had all been self-tapes. Another only speaks to their agent via email. It seems many aren’t having the opportunities to build relationships with casting directors, getting to know their peers, and form bonds within the industry. They’re isolated.

I sound old, but I miss the days of going to auditions bumping into people you know and grabbing a coffee afterwards. I told one young actor stories of what it used to be like and she was genuinely surprised, and wonderfully not deterred by the industry as it is now. 

But how do we support our young actors? What initiatives do we have for them? There are workshops and classes and discounted tickets but all cost money and many have just paid £30k to train in the first place and are working multiple jobs to just survive living in London. What can we do to provide community and support for them? 

I don’t have an answer to this - it’s just something I think about a lot. The loss of community, the lack of relationships. Strong community connections are vital for mental well-being, we all need a sense of belonging, support, and purpose, which helps us reduce stress, improves our self-esteem, and greater overall happiness. We need other people.

Right now, we are blessed to be working with recent LAMDA graduate Jazz Jenkins on (This is not a) Happy Room - a phenomenal actress with so much passion and energy for the industry. And I want there to be an industry that can support that. Support them all.

One of the reasons I love theatre is the sense of community it creates.  When writing (This is not a) Happy Room, a cast of seven characters aging from their 20’s-85 (big up Alison Linney making her stage debut at 84) I was most excited about bringing together a group of people from all walks of life to have a laugh (some would say we’ve been laughing too much).

It fills my heart to be in a room with such generous, hilarious human beings, and whilst the rehearsals are incredibly important (just in case our producer is reading this) it’s the sharing of stories, the lunch times, the laughter, that is what makes it all so worthwhile. It’s the sense we’re all in this together. If I could bottle that and sell it I would… and then pay for a community centre for young actors. 

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