Growing up deaf in a family with secrets – Graeae’s Self-Raising comes to Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre

Having spent a lifetime championing stories bydeaf and disabled artists, Sealey now takes to the road to tell her own story. Unravelling the past and facing the future, Self-Raising is an honest, laugh-out-loud show about growing up deaf in a family with secrets.

Jenny said: “I feel so lucky to be able to share Self-Raising across England and I am looking forward to hearing more secrets.”

Jenny Sealey has been the artistic director of Graeae since 1997. She has pioneered a new theatrical language developing the ‘Aesthetics of Access’ as an artistic expression; the creative integration of sign language, captioning and audio description in performance.

Her credits for Graeae include The Paradis Files, Reasons To Be Cheerful, Sarah Kane’s Blasted; Kaite O’Reilly’s peeling, The House of Bernarda Alba, Blood Wedding and The Threepenny Opera. Plays for young people include Diary of an Action Man and Whiter than Snow, both by Mike Kenny. Outdoor productions include Against the Tide, The Iron Man, The Garden, The Limbless Knight – A Tale of Rights Reignited and, for the World War One Centenary, This Is Not For You with disabled veterans.

Jenny co-directed the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings. She has been awarded the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award and is an honorary Doctor of Drama at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Middlesex University and a Fellow of the Central School of Speech and Drama and Rose Bruford College.

Mike Kenny was included in the Independent on Sunday’s list of Top Ten Living UK Playwrights. His plays are performed regularly throughout the UK and all over the world. He was the first recipient of The Arts Council of England Children’s Award. His adaptation of The Railway Children won the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. In 2012 he created a new version of The York Mysteries, and has since worked on the large scale, site-sensitive community plays Blood and Chocolate, In Fog and Falling Snow, and This is Not For You, for Graeae and 14-18-NOW. Most recently, his adaptation of CJ Sansom’s Sovereign was performed by a cast of over 100. He first worked with Jenny Sealey at Red Ladder Theatre in 1988. His work for Graeae includes The Last Freak Show, A Diary of an Action Man, Whiter than Snow, and this year’s dramatisation for BBC Radio 4, The Chatterleys.

For more than 40 years, Graeae has cultivated and championed the best in Ddeaf, disabled and neurodivergent talent, locally, nationally and internationally. Graeae is passionate about igniting artistic curiosity, championing accessibility and providing a platform for new generations of artists. It is also a human rights company.

Self-Raising can be seen at the SJT on at 7.45pm on Tuesday February 20 and 1.45pm on Thursday February 21.

Tickets are available on 01723 370541 and at www.sjt.uk.com