“I don’t know what to imagine now.”
Kit, Emery and Tracy meet just before their school reunion, but a simple search for shoes quickly spirals into an existential event that fractures their personal identities.
Quick. Wild. Slow. Sad. Soft. Sharp. A question mark. We’ll Be Who We Are is perhaps about how perception constructs reality, maybe about escaping your past, and possibly about absurd social norms that only make sense if you squint.
It’s definitely a singular theatrical experience that revels in the strange. A plant-filled play that embraces quiet tenderness and envelops you in its playful logic.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Playwriting, Naomi Obeng’s first full-length play conjures a vibrant, precarious, earthy ecosystem – a radical play about labels and outsiders. Directed by Júlia Levai, produced by WoLab, whose string of five-star hits include: For a Palestinian, RAINER & ENG-ER-LAND.
Naomi Obeng is a artist and playwright. She believes in theatre’s unique power to construct new worlds in order to ask otherwise invisible questions.
She was recently part of NO BORDERS at the Royal Court, and one of English Touring Theatre's Nationwide Voices 2021-22, with Nottingham Playhouse. Her work for the stage includes: Where It Lands (Nottingham Playhouse), New Town Cry (New Perspectives), A Distance Between (Paines Plough) and Three Acts of Love (Live, upcoming 2023).
Her writing development has been supported by the Royal Court, Soho Theatre, Leicester Curve, Nottingham Playhouse, New Perspectives. We'll Be Who We Are is her first full-length play and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting 2020.
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WoLab is a working laboratory for artists to create. WoLab trains, mentors, nurtures, and creatively entitles artists, helping them discover and refine their talents, and then showcases those talents to the industry. Recent work includes ENG-ER-LAND by Hannah Kumari, which so far has toured to 28 venues; For a Palestinian by Bilal Hasna and Aaron Kilercioglu, which enjoyed an acclaimed five-star sellout run at Camden Peoples Theatre and Bristol Old Vic, and RAINER by Max Wilkinson – which dazzled audiences last summer at London’s Arcola Theatre.
Other work in development includes: Screwdriver by Eve Cowley and Elin Schofield; A nightmare is witchwork by Billie Collins; A Romantic Comedy by Tiwa Lade; TIGER by Tom Kelsey; Hot Rain in Hackney by Alistair Wilkinson. Past work includes: First Commissions (Paines Plough); The Actor-Writer Programme (Theatre N16/Bunker Theatre); Man-Cub (RADA/King’s Head); PlayList (King’s Head); happy ever after? (Bunker Theatre); and R&D’s of heavymetalsexyanimal by Sam Rees (Theatre Deli); and Asperger’s Children by Peter Machen (Trinity Laban).
Twitter & Instagram: @WoLaboratory
Press & Reviews
Praise for previous work:
★★★★★ "A raw, strong piece of theatre, that leaves a durable impression." - West End Evenings on For a Palestinian
★★★★★ “For the entire hour, I was transfixed” – Everything Theatre on RAINER
"Something rare in theatre." - WhatsOnStage on WoLab
"Their energy and enthusiasm for the work is contagious." OutSavvy on WoLab
Cast & Creative Team CAST:
Tracy - Joanne Marie Mason
Kit - Joshua Merara
Emery - Adam Tutt
CREATIVE TEAM:
Writer - Naomi Obeng
Director - Júlia Levai
Set & costume design - TK Hay
Sound design - Munotida Chinyanga
Lighting design - Lucía Sanchez Roldán
Movement director - Nadia Sohawon
Stage Manager - Emily Darley
Production company & producer - WoLab, Alistair Wilkinson