WRITER ~ DIRECTOR ~ script EDITOR ~LECTURER
LIBERATION
Royal Exchange Theatre & Manchester International Festival
How does a revolution begin and who are the people that keep it going?
It’s 15 October 1945, Manchester. Africa's freedom and future is in the hands of her descendants at the Fifth Pan-African Congress at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall.
With decades of championing change under their belts, emerging African and Caribbean activists and scholars offer new radical ideas of liberation. However, the organiser, Trinidadian activist George Padmore is unsure who to pass the baton to. Kwame Nkrumah is fuelled by an idealistic desire to become the first Black president of the Gold Coast. Young, resourceful Jamaican social worker Alma La Badie is grappling with the truth behind who must be sacrificed for the cause. And what of the revered Amy Ashwood-Garvey how does she ensure the voices of Black women are heard?
This groundbreaking new play developed 80 years after the Congress introduces the people behind the movement. With generational shifts and gender politics added to a swirling mix of power dynamics, LIBERATION asks timeless questions about revolution, freedom, and what it means to be an activist.
LIBERATION includes composition by Ife Ogunjobi from the Brit Award-winning Ezra Collective.
CAST
Leonie Elliott
Alma La Badie
Eric Kofi Abrefa
Kwame Nkrumah
Rudolphe Mdlongwa
Makumalo Hlubi
Tonderai Munyevu
Jomo Kenyatta
Tachia Newall
Len Johnson
Pamela Nomvete
Amy Ashwood-Garvey
Joshua Roberts-Mensah
Joe Appiah
Bex Smith
Betty Dorman
Nicola Stephenson
Dorothy Pizer
Eamonn Walker
George Padmore
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Ntombizodwa Nyoni
Director: Monique Touko
Set Designer: Paul Wills
Costume Designer: Sunny Dolat
Composer: Ife Ogunjobi
Lighting Designer: Matt Haskins
Sound Designer: Alexandra Faye Braithwaite
Video Designer: Dick Straker
Movement Director: Kloé Dean
Consultant Dramaturg : Chinonyerem Odimba
Fight and Intimacy Director: Bethan Clark
Voice & Dialect Coach : Joel Trill
Dramatherapist: Samantha Adams
Grounding & Safe Practice: Uwarobosa Enobakhare
Associate Movement Director: Cache Thake
Hodgkiss Assistant Director: Robert Furey
Factory Fellow: Stef Reynolds
Casting Director: Sophie Parrott CDG
HR & Wellbeing Consultant: Chidi Lee
Image Illustrator: Ali 'Komikamo’ Kamara
Gain an insight on the research process of Liberation by watching Bunker Talks, Curated by the Performance Research Group at Manchester School of Art, Bunker Talks explore geopolitical, ecological or economic concerns. The talks create space for critical encounters, presentations, provocation and dialogue.