The Old Vic celebrates International Women’s Day with two new commissions

The Old Vic has announced two new commissions to be screened as part of the ‘Your Old Vic’ programme, which will celebrate International Women’s Day. 

The monologues will go under the ‘One Voice’ moniker and are written by Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Regina Taylor. Pritchard-McLean will also direct her piece, Putting a Face On, in which Susan Wokoma will star. Taylor’s piece Aisha (the black album) will be directed by Tinuke Craig and performed by Jade Anouka.

Both monologues cover sensitive and emotive topics; with Putting A Face On broaching the topic of gaslighting and how domestic abuse remains prevalent in many women’s lives despite the positive advancements in gender equality. The Domestic Abuse Bill returns to the House of Lords for a second reading (as part of a campaign to offer further rights, support and protection to survivors) and this piece offers insight to what is required and what the victim-blaming, emotional abuse and control can do to a person.

Aisha (the black album) traces the history of Black women’s political power from disenfranchisement to the centenary of the first women being awarded the right to vote in America, set against the back drop of pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 US Election leading to Kamala Harris’ historic inauguration.

The monologues will be broadcast on YouTube from Monday 8 March at 10am and form part of a culmination of a week-long celebration for International Women’s Day. They will begin by re-releasing a selection of the One-Hand Tied Behind Us ‘One Voice’ series. 

The original series was curated in 2018 by Maxine Peake, as a celebration of 100 years since the 1918 Representation of the People Act gave the first women in Britain the right to vote.  The monologues chosen to be re-released are Betsy by Ella Hickson performed by Jill Halfpenny, Contactless by Maxine Peake performed by Siobhan McSweeney, Imagine That by Kit de Waal performed by Flo Wilson, and Mother’s Little Helper 1963 by Jeanette Winterson and performed by Celia Imrie.

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