This photo was taken during the R&D at the WMC. We are all sitting round having a discussion about the timeline of the story of the show. In the room there is the director Elise Davison, the writer Alun Saunders, three actors including myself, two Welsh language students who were on work experience and our BSL interpreters.
Creatives discussing the storyboard. Photo by Safyan Iqbal.

Stephanie Anne Back – I Said I Love You (ISILY)

I Said I Love You (ISILY) is a deaf-led theatre project exploring the cultural connection between Welsh Language and British Sign Language (BSL).

Told through a character-led narrative by writer Alun Saunders, ISILY is a love story that stimulates debate about who should decide how we choose to communicate. Told in a darkly comedic way and using a mixture of theatrical styles, the underlying topics of culture, identity, communication, communication breakdowns, oppression and linguistics are distilled into a romance.

ISILY blows patronising attitudes and myths about deafness out of the water, standing proud as a comment on the breakdown of communication in our society and how there is always a way if you just look hard enough. With the Welsh language and British Sign Language forced into war with the constant fight for attention, why can they not work together?