Living Latino
real life stories, devised workshops
Part of Queer Season at King's Head Theatre August 2018
It all started in January 2017, during the production of Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy, when Dr Greg Ussher, the CEO of METRO Charity, was our main panelist for the post show Q&A. It was back then that we had our first chat about working together to support the LGBTQ+ community through making theatre. A year later we came up with the idea for these workshops, where we used theatre to give a voice to those underrepresented in the arts and support METRO with their work around HIV prevention and support.
Over the eight weeks, a group of queer Latinos living with or affected by HIV, received basic acting training and accessed drama therapy sessions. During the first few sessions they shared their own life stories of how it is to be living as a queer Latino migrant in the UK. Four professional actors joined the workshops to devise those stories and develop Living Latino.
This workshop was a pilot and it was kindly funded by METRO Charity. In 2019 this project was further developed with actors to create Moonlight Strangers. Big Boots further worked with METRO and secured funding (Community Lottery Fund) for a year long Theatre Workshops that took place in 2020.
To find out more about METRO's emerging communities work with Latinos and Latin Americans, visit the Latino Seguro section of their website.
Artwork design and workshops photography by Nicolas Chinardet.
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Cast and Creatives
Director - Sebastian Palka
Dramaturg - Charlotte Everest
Company Stage Manager - Scott Willans
Photography - Nicolas Chinardet
Casting - Kris Webb (Cloud Casting)
Sebastian Palka
workshops facilitator
Actor and Director has worked in theatre, film, TV in a wide range of styles, roles and forms. Sebastian worked with acclaimed theatre and film directors Jacek Skalski (Poland), Adam Cook (Australia) and Shane Meadows (UK). He trained in the Academy of Theatrical Arts in Krakow, Poland and The Acting College in Sydney, Australia.
Sebastian is a founder of Big Boots Theatre Company Limited. He received an Off West End Award Nomination in the category of Best Director for Holding the Man staged at Brockley Jack Theatre in 2017. Sebastian is a member of Genesis Directors Network at Young Vic in London and the Directors's Cut at Southwark Playhouse.
Sebastian has written musicals and directed at the Polish Children Theatre ‘Syrena’ in Hammersmith, London. He directed at Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden and assisted at City Lit Drama School in Holborn. Other credits include Faust by Wolfgang Goethe, The Giaour by Lord Byron and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Charlotte Everest
Dramaturg
Everest's directing career began in Leeds, directing Churchill's Love and Information (Banham Theatre) and assisting on Boys at the Edinburgh Fringe. Everest began to expand her style, completing a sold-out run of an immersive performance of Peter Nichols' Passion Play. Her second immersive endeavour was a large-scale environmental piece, adapting John Fowel's The Magus (Stage@Leeds). Alongside training on Mountview's MA in Theatre Directing, she has assistant directed on numerous London productions: Lobster (Theatre 503), Welcome To Thebes (Mountview), One Last Tragedy (The Bread and Roses), Chicken Soup with Barley (Mountview), Broken (Old Red Lion), A Raisin in the Sun (Karamel Club) and has recently directed Bad Jews (Mountview), Benchmarks (a radio play), One's and Zero's (The Etcetera), Flash (Karamel) and That Was All (Theatre 503).
Scott Willans
Strage Manager
Originally from Canterbury Scott moved to London 7 years ago. Scott has been sound mixing in a church setting for 10 years. He has started to take take these skills further into the theatre and events industry. Recently working on City Lit Production of 'Welcome to Thebes'.
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