House + Amongst the Reeds: two plays

Two explosive plays about the need to be seen.

Somalia Seaton's House is a play about family, culture clash, memory and truth. When Pat returns to her childhood home after a five-year absence, she's ready to forgive her mother for the neglect she suffered at her hands, but Mama isn't ready to let the demons back into her home.

In Chino Odimba's Amongst the Reeds, two friends scratch out a living on the margins of society. Oni and Gillian have made their home in a disused office block, finding ever more precarious ways to stay hidden from the authorities. But now Gillian is heavily pregnant, and visibility might be the only way to give her baby a chance.

Commissioned by Clean Break and produced in association with the Yard Theatre, London, House + Amongst the Reeds premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, before transferring to The Yard.

Acclaimed theatre company Clean Break produces ground-breaking plays with women writers and actors at the heart of its work. Founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who needed urgently to tell their stories through theatre, the company today has an independent education programme delivering theatre opportunities to women offenders and women at risk, in custodial and community settings.

'Raw, smart drama... a focused but never narrow look at the intersection of culture and family' (on House)— Broadway Baby

'An impressive, absorbing and intimate double bill'— Observer

“'Raw, smart drama... a focused but never narrow look at the intersection of culture and family' (on House)”

'Raw, smart drama... a focused but never narrow look at the intersection of culture and family' (on House)

'An impressive, absorbing and intimate double bill'

Somalia Seaton is a British-Jamaican and Nigerian playwright and screenwriter, born and raised in South-East London.Her plays include Red (commissioned by Tonic Theatre as part of its Platform scheme, and published by Nick Hern Books in 2017); Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Footsoldier (Royal Shakespeare Company; finalist for the 2017 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); House (Clean Break; Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh/The Yard, London, 2016); Crowning Glory (Stratford East, shortlisted for the 2014 Alfred Fagon Award); Curly Fries and Bass (Lyric, Hammersmith); Mama's Little Angel (The Yard, London); and Hush Little Baby (Open Works Theatre Co./Soho Theatre).Chinonyerem Odimba is a playwright and screenwriter.Her plays include: Unknown Rivers (Hampstead Theatre, 2019); Princess and the Hustler (Eclipse Theatre Company, Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre co-production, 2019); Amongst the Reeds (Clean Break, Edinburgh Fringe and Yard Theatre, London, 2016); A Blues for Nia (Eclipse Theatre/BBC); His name is Ishmael (Bristol Old Vic, 2013); The Birdwoman of Lewisham (Arcola, 2015) and Joanne (Clean Break, Soho Theatre, 2015). She is a winner of the Channel 4 Playwrights' Scheme 2016 (formerly the Pearson Playwrights' Scheme).Her screenplay Scotch Bonnet was filmed by the BBC for The Break, a series of short films.

Two explosive plays about the need to be seen. Somalia Seaton's House is a play about family, culture clash, memory and truth. When Pat returns to her childhood home after a five-year absence, she's ready to forgive her mother for the neglect she suffered at her hands, but Mama isn't ready to let the demons back into her home. In Chino Odimba's Amongst the Reeds, two friends scratch out a living on the margins of society. Oni and Gillian have made their home in a disused office block, finding ever more precarious ways to stay hidden from the authorities. But now Gillian is heavily pregnant, and visibility might be the only way to give her baby a chance. Commissioned by Clean Break and produced in association with the Yard Theatre, London, House + Amongst the Reeds premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016, before transferring to The Yard. Acclaimed theatre company Clean Break produces ground-breaking plays with women writers and actors at the heart of its work.Founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who needed urgently to tell their stories through theatre, the company today has an independent education programme delivering theatre opportunities to women offenders and women at risk, in custodial and community settings.

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