The next interview in our stagey chat series is with Katie Greenall. Katie is currently on a 12-date UK tour with her autobiographical piece, BLUBBER.

Hi Katie, how are you doing today? Thanks so much for chatting to Stage to Page! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us how you first got into the industry?

Lovely to chat to you! My name is Katie Greenall and I am a director and theatre maker, and currently on tour with my second solo autobiographical show BLUBBER.

I studied Acting and Community Theatre at drama school and so making theatre that is bold and ambitious in form, whilst also creating spaces for underrepresented voices and communities has always been at the heart of what I do. This is inspired me to start making work about my identity too.

Alongside my work as a writer/performer I work as a director and theatre maker specialising in new work and work with Young People and Communities. I have just finished at the Bush Theatre as Associate Director and now I am one of the new Associate Directors at the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

Your show, BLUBBER, is currently on its 12-date UK tour. Can you tell us about the story?

BLUBBER is a solo autobiographical show exploring my quest to reconnect with my own body through the journey of synchronised swimming, forgiveness and whales- asking the audience was does the future look like for me and my body?

As well as hearing more traditional anecdotal storytelling, we follow Katie on a voyage to find her body and reconnect with it. I wanted to offer something new to audiences and it felt like the best way to explore that was through fusing my life and experiences with an imagined world.

What inspired you to write a piece about the exploration of body image? And what does self-acceptance look like to you?

After drama school I felt like there wasn’t really a place for bodies like mine in the industry and so I started to make my own work- firstly as a spoken word artist which grew into longer pieces of work. I really wanted to explore my experience living in a fat body, as I felt like that was something that I rarely saw portrayed in any positive light. My last show FATTY FAT FAT, explored my initial understanding of fat activism in a broader sense, whereas BLUBBER really focuses on what the politics around my body feels like for me right now.

As the writer and performer of the piece, are there small parts you ad-lib or change during each performance?

Yes definitely! What I love about theatre and live performance, is exactly that, the liveness. My work only comes alive when it’s in relationship with an audience and I love to respond to who’s in the room and how they are meeting the show in that moment. Because it’s only me on stage, I love having the autonomy to do that without it impacting anyone else’s performance.

My blog is called Stage to Page. But if you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?

That’s a great question! I would love to see more plays and stories with fat protagonists, maybe exploring some of the classic love stories with people in bigger bodies playing the leads.

And finally, why should people book tickets to see BLUBBER?

I hope BLUBBER is a show for everyone who has a body! Bodies are universal and there are very few people who haven’t had a complex relationship with theirs at some point- so I hope, perhaps, people leave feeling more connected to their own bodies and see bodies like mine in a different light.

You can book tickets to Blubber, here.

**photo credit: Claudia Legge**