There isn't one moment really that sparked my love of the theatre but there have always been moments that showed me how magical it can be.
One of those was when I was about seven. I was too small to see the stage from the front row of the Prince Edward Theatre. My granddad had brought me to see Mary Poppins for my birthday and there wasn't a booster seat anywhere to be found. Luckily, the musicians in the pit gathered up their coats and let me sit on them, propping me up high enough to finally see the magic on stage. I have never forgotten those strangers making space for me without a second thought and the feeling of being part of something bigger. That moment has stayed with me through every show since.
It stings that the same space that gave me that feeling has also, at times, been where I've felt smallest. Being talked over and interrupted. Having my seriousness questioned, and comments made about my appearance by men far older than me. The kind of thing a lot of women in these rooms will recognise. Each individual moment is easy to brush off but they add up, and that's what stays with you. Why should we have to fight to be taken seriously in a room we've earned our place in? We shouldn't have to. And that's why Boudicca Productions is so important to me.
I've met brilliant, talented people through community theatre in Colchester (including my co-founders). That part's been genuinely wonderful. But I kept noticing the same gap: stories about women, told through the same lens, again and again. Honest, complicated stories getting flattened into something safer, or not told at all. I got tired of waiting for someone else to change that.
Boudicca was one of the strongest (known) women in this region's history but this company isn't just about her. It's about every woman since who's had to find that same strength, whether that's leading an army or just trying to be heard in a rehearsal room. Boudicca Productions is female-founded, artist-led and about telling the real stories of women and underrepresented voices. The honest ones. Not the comfortable ones. Stories about relationships, identity, struggle, life as it's actually lived. Told by us, the people who've actually lived it.
I won't pretend this isn't daunting. We're starting from nothing. No money, no guarantees, a genuinely hard road ahead. That's frightening. It's also freeing. When you're starting from the ground up, there's nowhere to go but forwards.
I'm scared. I'm also excited. I can't wait to see what we build.