When I Am Queen, devised by the company

Almeida Theatre

Production photos by Peter Schiazza

About

WHEN I AM QUEEN is a piece of devised theatre created with 7 students from Clapton Girls’ Academy as a response to the Almeida Theatre's MARY STUART, and performed on the set of the main house production in January 2017.

Alongside Sound Designer Alexandra Faye Braithwaite, Elayce worked with the cast throughout the autumn 2016 term to interrogate Friedrich Schiller’s original play. In reimagining the story for a contemporary setting, the cast explored themes of power, duty and leadership, and in particular, female power in a male-dominated world, taking inspiration both from the lives of female monarchs, and the political backdrop of Theresa May becoming the second female Prime Minister of the UK. The resulting production, WHEN I AM QUEEN, told the story of an imagined modern-day princess, torn between the public, private and political tensions in her life, as she prepared to be crowned Queen.

During the creation process, the cast wrote their own manifestos for the type of leader they would want to be; these texts were the basis for the script of WHEN I AM QUEEN, and can be read on the Almeida website, here.

Creative Team

Director: Elayce Ismail
Sound Designer: Alexandra Faye Braithwaite