MY VOICE WAS HEARD BUT IT WAS IGNORED Comes to Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre Next Month

A fiercely honest play about racial identity by breakthrough Ghanaian-English writer Nana-Kofi Kufuor comes to Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre next month after a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival.

My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored, at the SJT on 15 and 16 September, was inspired by Kufuor's experiences growing up in Stockport, and working in education with young people from a range of backgrounds.

Fifteen-year-old Reece is roughly accosted by the police outside M&S. His teacher Gillian watches as his face is pressed into the wet gravel with a policeman's knee in his back, frozen out of fear for her own safety. The next day, Reece locks them both in her classroom, refusing to relinquish the key.

He wants her to pay - and to fully understand the pain of the irreversible breakdown of trust her inaction has caused.

Nana-Kofi Kufuor says: "Working at a Pupil Referral Unit, I once had a student try to take a knife to stab another student. Once I'd calmed him down, we sat in the canteen and he explained to me he wasn't going to go quietly. The police were outside and they took him. I saw him a few weeks later, and he asked why I didn't help him?

"That rush of guilt changed to anger and quickly to sympathy as he saw me as his protector. But I knew I couldn't do anything. The crux of this play is how two people react to the same situation: they go on a journey; a journey a lot of people of colour go on - a realisation that where you are now isn't necessarily where you come from."

Originally supported by Leeds Playhouse and Oldham Coliseum, Artistic Director Rod Dixon, Producer Chris Lloyd and the team at Leeds-based Red Ladder Theatre Company are thrilled to be bringing this gripping stage play and the urgent questions it raises about racial identity and Black British experience to Scarborough as part of a national tour.

The original cast reprise their roles with Misha Duncan-Barry as Gillian and Jelani D'Aguilar as Reece, directed by Leeds-based actor, director and filmmaker Dermot Daly whose extensive credits for stage and screen include work with Leeds Playhouse, Slung Low, Talawa, Theatre Royal Stratford East, BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored was originally developed as part of a year-long writing commission for Box Of Tricks and staged as a rehearsed reading at HOME Manchester in January 2020, where it was commissioned for further development by Rod Dixon. With a commitment to amplifying unheard voices spanning over five decades, Red Ladder is thrilled to be taking this important and thought-provoking play on tour, following a four-week run at the first full Edinburgh Fringe Festival post-pandemic.

Dermot Daly says: "This is a play about identity, about love, and how both of those things intersect with race. We don't talk about race. We shout about race, we worry about it, we ignore it, we politicise it, but we don't talk about it and the experiences and quality of life that are impacted by being 'other'. This play investigates what race can feel like; how it touches everything, including a tangible sense of self. Given the recent past that we've individually, collectively experienced, there's a sense of wanting to be 'together' so as to better understand where we're individually coming from."

Rod Dixon says: "We're very excited to be working with Nana-Kofi Kufuor: this important play addresses key issues about race and identity at a time when society needs to heal division and strife. We've reunited a fantastic creative team including Dermot Daly and look forward to taking this necessary and relevant work on tour."

My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored is designed by Caitlin Mawhinney, with sound design by Tayo Akinbode, and lighting and visual design by Adam Foley. The dramaturg is Lindsay Rodden, and Rod Dixon is the Movement Director. The Technical Manager is Tom Blackband.

Red Ladder is pleased to be offering captioning for every performance of My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored. Audiences can access captioning via The Difference Engine, a tool that enables d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to read performance captions on their phone.

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