Actors Rising Productions and The Playground Theatre present
SHE/HER
24-28 NOV & 1-5 DEC | 7:30pm
29 NOV & 6 DEC | 4pm
Antoinette Cooper
Bogdana Kalantay
Jasmine Thien
Juliet Garricks
Kate Rigg
Michelle Joyner
Sadie Jemmett
Sara Amini
Naomi Sorkin
SHE/HER is a raw, multimedia collision of spoken-word monologues, original live music, video, and dance drawn and written by each performer from their own lived experiences. We witness women in the wonder of life, their desires, devastation, love, humour, and their survival of loss and war.
After premiering in 2021 at Centre for Contemporary Art (PS21) in New York, SHE/HER returned with a new cast to the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it had a critically acclaimed run. In March 2026, a workshop version was presented at The Playground Theatre for the 2026 Women's Voices Festival. Each iteration brings in new local performers. Every telling is real, never secondhand.
We now return for the fourth iteration for SHE/HER, presenting a collection of unique stories that connect and inspire audiences; a kaleidoscope of lived experience and truth we rarely see on stage.
Women’s voices matter now more than ever because women have been written out of history for too long. Their achievements have been minimized, stories cancelled, voices suppressed and drowned out by systematic erasure. When women's stories are told raw and unfiltered, they stop being reduced to victims.
BOOKING INFORMATION
Duration: 90 mins including 15 min interval
Interval: 15 mins
Content Warnings: Trigger Warning: nudity and topics such as violence, war, and miscarriage
Recommended for 15+
Tickets (All unreserved)
General Admission - £25
Concession | Senior over 60 - £20
Access for All | Unemployed | Student - £20
Early Bird - £18
Note: Please contact boxoffice@theplaygroundtheatre.org.uk for your complementary ticket for a carer/companion/friend
Nicole Ansari-Cox is an award-winning actor, director, writer, and producer. Nicole’s theatrical and film career spans many different cultures and languages across Europe and North America, working in film with directors such as Martin Campbell and Steven Soderbergh, and with Trevor Nunn in the West End and on Broadway, as well as performing with the famed Théâtre du Soleil in Paris under the direction of Ariane Mnouchkine. Most recently, she starred alongside her husband, Brian Cox, in the West End hit The Score, which travels to Washington, D.C. this fall. Recent film and TV credits include the UK sewage-scandal drama Dirty Business with David Thewlis for Channel 4; Under the Stars (Amazon Prime, with Toni Collette and Andy Garcia); Just Play Dead (with Samuel L. Jackson and Eva Green); Wind of Change; Your Fault: London; Hotel Tehran (with Liam Neeson); and Glenrothan with Brian Cox and Alan Cumming, for which she also served as second unit director and executive producer. Glenrothan is now available on VOD following its UK cinema release. As a director, Nicole created and directed the multimedia show She/Her, which premiered in 2020 at PS21 in New York, went on to a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, and after showing two days at the Women’s voices festival at the Playground Theatre this year, the show returns this fall for a full runwith part of the original cast alongside new performers and music. Nicole has also directed two short films and the web series MESSY, for which she won several awards as best director and best web series, as well as a number of shows for the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. Nicole received two awards for empowering women from The Socially relevant Film festival NYC and the Women of the World Film festival in London.
ANTOINETTE COOPER originated her role in Nicole Ansari-Cox’s SHE/HER at PS21 (2021) and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2022), and returns to London’s Playground Theatre this season. A Jamaican-born, New York-based writer and Collective Trauma Facilitator, her work lives at the intersection of poetry, ceremony, and collective healing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Collective Trauma Integration Process, and is a student of Somatic Experiencing®. Her debut collection UNRULY (Legacy Book Press, 2025), endorsed by m. nourbeSe philip and Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, reached #4 on Amazon's Black Poetry bestseller list. A Writer-in-Residence at Columbia University and Better Selves Fellow, Cooper is a funded artist through NYSCA and LMCC, and has led workshops at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Poets House, and the Poetry Foundation. She is the founder and Executive Director of Black Exhale, a nonprofit creating sanctuary spaces for healing intergenerational trauma in Black communities. (bio.site/antoinettecooper)
Bogdana Kalantay is a German-Ukrainian actor and producer working internationally across film, television, theatre and audio. A graduate of East 15 Acting School, her screen credits include Amazon Prime’s CITADEL, directed by Joe Russo, the BAFTA-winning short film ROCK PAPER SCISSORS, and LAND OF SMILES, produced by Avalon. Her stage work includes SHE/HER at The Playground Theatre, A FAN OF WAR at Barons Court Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre, and FOR KILLED POETS at Finborough Theatre. She has also performed for BBC Radio 4 in the adaptation of A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN. Alongside her acting career, Bogdana produces and develops short films, including KNÄCKE and SALT IN HER HAIR, NACHSPIELZEIT collaborating with filmmakers across Germany, the UK and Ukraine. Fluent in English, German, Ukrainian and Russian, Bogdana is particularly drawn to stories that explore cultural identity and the connections between people across borders.
Proudly disabled, neurodivergent, pansexual and of Southeast Asian Chinese heritage, Jasmine Thien is an actor, writer, comedian and facilitator whose work tackles the raw, the messy, the joyous and the unjust. Her debut one-woman show I Dream in Colour was nominated for the Charlie Hartill Award and the Popcorn Writing Award in 2025. She made her publication debut in Spin! a children’s poetry anthology edited by former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho in 2024. She was a finalist in the Max Turner Prize Competition for Stand Up Comedians in 2023. Jasmine is passionate about telling stories which have historically been pushed into silence.
Juliet Garricks is a multidisciplinary performer and writer who believes that stories can shine a spotlight on, and create opportunities for, the healing of humanity. She performed most recently alongside Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari Cox in The Score at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC, after its successful run in the West End. Juliet also featured in Sir Trevor Nunn’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya at The Orange Tree Theatre, as well as Robert Icke's The Doctor in the West End and transferred with the play to The Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Juliet has appeared in several British TV series such as Channel 4’s The Jury, BBC’s Silent Witness and Casualty as well as critically acclaimed shows such as HBO’s Dune Prophecy and BBC’s Mr Loverman. She dreams of one day voicing animations for Disney.
Kate Rigg is an award winning comedian and actor. Her one person shows have toured internationally and have been featured at Montreal Just For Laughs Festival, the Smithsonian Institute, The Comedy Central Theater, Vancouver International Comedy Festival, LA Grand Performances Edinburgh Fringe and many more. She also created and executive produced "Dance Your Ass Off" on Oxygen TV, “Cache Craze” on Disney XD and “Tour Dates” for E! Her comedy has been featured in Time Magazine, Backstage, BUST magazine, and on PBS, Showtime, LOGO, CTV and Comedy Central. As an actor she has starred in many off-broadway plays and guest Starred on tv including all the Law and Orders. She is one half of the AmerAsian rock-comedy-spoken-word duo Slanty Eyed Mama. She is a graduate of the Juilliard School.
More at www.katerigg.com IG: @kateriggnyc
MICHELLE JOYNE is an American theatre director, writer and actor based in western Massachusetts, following a long career in Hollywood. She is happy to return to SHE/HER after 3 previous productions. She starred in THE APPROACH with Nicole Cox (Shakespeare and Co, Ma) and recently helmed THE SHOT with Sharon Lawrence at theaters around the US (upcoming The Wallis, LA, 2027), TRUE ART (Dorset Theatre Festival, Vt) and THE STONES (GB Public Theatre, Ma). She has written 10 studio screenplays, and her new play IODINE will be workshopped this spring. www.michellejoyner.com
Sadie Jemmett is a critically acclaimed British composer, director and singer-songwriter working internationally across theatre and music. Former Artistic Director and Resident Composer of Footsbarn Travelling Theatre, she wrote, directed and composed numerous productions that toured extensively across Europe, including appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe and in London.
Sadie is the co-founder of Common Ground Theatre, creating accessible, dynamic Shakespeare productions designed to be performed anywhere—from theatres and traditional venues to woodlands and outdoor spaces. Common Ground Theatre will undertake a winter residency at The Playground Theatre in London in December 2026.
Her long-standing collaborations with acclaimed director Irina Brook have led to compositions for major international stages including Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York and Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.
As a recording artist, Sadie was signed to legendary folk singer Judy Collins’ label, Wildflower Records. She has released four critically acclaimed albums and toured extensively across the UK, Europe and the US, earning recognition for her politically charged and socially conscious songwriting.
Naomi Sorkin was one of America’s leading classical and dramatic dancers, and comes from a strong musical background. She was born in Chicago where her father Leonard Sorkin was the founder and first violinist of The Fine Arts Quartet.
Naomi joined American Ballet Theatre at 17, and rose quickly through the ranks to become the youngest leading soloist dancing many principal roles, before leaving to be principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet and the Eliot Feld Ballet. She became known for her varied repertoire which ranged from classical, lyrical work to contemporary and dramatic choreography. Rarely had one dancer combined the strength of technique and dramatic power embodied in Miss Sorkin, which made her a favourite of choreographers around the world and a leading guest artist. She became a freelance artist, enabling her to experience more diversified work, guesting with many of the major dance companies (both ballet and contemporary) across the states and culminating in a solo evening with cello and piano. Naomi performed this programme in New York City, London, Munich, and Cardiff, which was highly unusual for a ballet dancer at the time. She played the leading role in the PBS avant-garde film Swan Lake Minnesota, which was highly critically acclaimed and well ahead of its time. Naomi came to Europe as a guest artist with the Lindsay Kemp Company where she created the ballerina role in his Nijinsky Il Matto and played Hermia in his Midsummer Night’s Dream. She then settled in London. With William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt, she took the central speaking role in his full-length masterpiece Artifact in Frankfurt, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Lisbon. In London she has played principal roles in two West End shows; Brigadoon and Grand Hotel, and also began to work as an actress.
Theatre work includes Ida Rubinstein, The Final Act at the Playground Theatre, The Dancing Master at the BAC, Creditors at The Gate Theatre, Tempestuous Tango at The Almedia, Blue Eyes Red at the White Bear, Gone With Petrushka at The ICA, and the role of Nastasya Fillipova in acclaimed Polish director Henryk Baranowski's production of The Idiot at Riverside Studios. More recently, Naomi was invited to Poland by director Henryk Baranowski, where he specially created the pivotal role of "The Black Angel" for her in his spectacular version of Macbeth. Naomi plays Ida Rubenstein in a film entitled “Madame Ida”, as first proposed to her by the late Bill Como, founder and editor of Dance Magazine.This short film was screened at the V&A museum, the London Short film Festival, the Capri festival, Brescia Dance Film Festival, Paris and most recently at the Theatre Museum of St Petersburg, where it now resides in their archive. She has also starred in “Roman Fever” by Derek Coutts, as well as "Married /Unmarried" by Noli.
She has now played Ida Rubinstein on stage at The Playground Theatre written and directed by Christian Holder, with Simon Callow remarking that she brought “sheer theatrical magic to the stage.” Most recently she completed the short film “The Nightmare” directed by Claire Davidson and Will Thomas Freeman and danced in "A Time For Everything" choreographed by Sophia Priolo.