Grenfell: in the words of survivors begins performances at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse April 13, ahead of its official opening April 21. The production will continue through May 12.
A new production from London’s National Theatre directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and Anthony Simpson-Pike (The P Word), the play centers on the North Kensington community who protected and cared for one another before, during, and after a devastating 2017 public housing tower fire that killed 72 people.
Compiled from testimonies drawn from verbatim interviews with some of the survivors and bereaved, the play—by South African writer Gillian Slovo—reveals the impact of the multiple failures that led to the national disaster.
The play stars Joe Alessi, Gaz Choudhry, Jackie Clune, Houda Echouafni, Mona Goodwin, Keaton Guimarães-Tolley, Ash Hunter, Rachid Sabitri, Michael Shaeffer, Dominique Tipper, and Nahel Tzegai.
In an op-ed for The Evening Standard, Slovo shared the documentarian impulse behind the play-based-in-tragedy: “I met people who had stood outside and watched as lights went out and people died. I met experts who told me what led to the fire, and what needed to be changed. I collected testimony about the days that followed the fire, when it seemed as if the whole country was galvanized to help, while the government, both central and local, stood helplessly by. And finally, and most importantly, I was privileged to listen to some of the people who had escaped that burning building, and to some who had also lost loved ones. It wasn’t easy for them to talk to me about their experiences. I could see, and I could feel, how much the effort cost them. But those who chose to be interviewed did so because they wanted their stories to be told on a national stage. They wanted an audience to hear what had happened to them, so that they might prevent it happening to anyone else.”
The creative team includes set and costume designer Georgia Lowe, lighting designer Azusa Ono, sound designer Donato Wharton, video designer Akhila Krishnan, composer Benjamin Kwasi Burrell, movement director Chi-San Howard, casting directors Chandra Ruegg and Alastair Coomer, and voice and dialect coach Hazel Holder. The production includes a short film made in collaboration with TEA Films.
For more information, visit StAnnsWarehouse.org
