The Write to Play programme is Graeae’s writer development programme, now in its second year and this time around focussed on the North West of England. I interview Amit Sharma in person at Graeae’s Bradbury studios and Jackie Hagan – currently enrolled on year two of the programme – via email while she’s preparing to tour her one-woman show, Some People Have Too Many Legs, A Contact and NRTF Flying Solo Commission.

For Amit, it came about because they noticed a lack of Deaf and disabled writers working in theatre. “There are a few reasons for that – a lot of writing courses are inaccessible – the buildings are, or theatre companies don’t know how to provide for disabled people.”

There’s also, perhaps, an implicit notion that disability becomes the subject of drama – “we wanted to provide the freedom of being defined just as a writer. And to provide practical opportunities – dramaturgs, mentors, actors, and to bring in mainstream theatres as well.”

The first year of the course was open to applicants based all over the country, though it was run from London, and Amit was surprised they had no applicants at all from the North-West. The solution? To target that area in year two of the course, to bring Deaf and disabled voices to the fore there. They’re partnered with regional powerhouses The Liverpool Everyman, The Royal Exchange Manchester, and the Octagon Bolton.

Jackie Hagan is a writer and performance poet currently touring her solo show Some People Have Too Many Legs. “It’s the story of how, last summer, I suddenly felt this off-the-scale, red-hot pain in my foot and went to A+E and then didn’t leave that hospital for five months. When I finally left, I had lost my leg, my fear of failure and loads of emotional deadwood that had been hanging round in my head causing chaos since I was a moody teenager.”

Amit waxes lyrical about the impact of the programme, and its pairing with big regional theatres – “we’re potentially really changing lives – it’s something that cannot really go underestimated. As a playwright, they’ll write and be mentored on a full length play, and it’s a fantastic opportunity, a platform to spring from.”

The course itself features Playwriting 101, a week long introduction to playwriting, and features acclaimed practitioners Mike Kenny and Kaite O’Reilly as tutors, special days of R&D, and the chance to have short pieces performed in front of an audience.

I ask Jackie what she hopes to gain from the programme. “I want to become an amazing playwright! The Royle Family meets Beckett. Sarah Kane with laughs. Unpick tricky societal problems and never take sides. Show the underbelly stuff that we pretend isn’t there – stuff that we hide from because it is uncomfortable to think about – but I’ll make it thinkable about with comedy, cosiness and charm.”

She already has an idea of the play she’ll write for the programme – a non-didactic take on the same story told in Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, examining how simplistic our definitions of consent and rape are. “As a species we are bonkers when it comes to sex. We’ve made it into a taboo, taboos are hard to communicate about, consent depends upon clear communication, hence chaos.”

I ask Jackie about issues of representation – as a disabled, working class writer – in theatre and TV. “I think the issue gets misunderstood. It’s not just the kids who can’t afford to be a freelance artists because they have no safety net – people don’t realise how much audiences and society as a whole are missing out. We need a wider variety of voices in theatre, that’s the point of theatre. Disability as represented on TV makes my whole body cringe. It’s still an olde worlde freak show, but without the cool tent.”

Jackie also runs the Seymour Writers project – they work “using creative writing to improve the lives of isolated adults. We’ve created a number of anthologies and poetry collections. I’ve been running this project for ten years and have seen the enormous influence creativity can have on people who feel alienated – reconnecting with writing in a healthy way that works for you, finding your voice, making sense of your feelings, having your experiences validated by others, being told you have done something well.”

Where does Amit want the writers to be in five years time? “I just want them to write, and to write the best plays they can – whether that’s for Graeae or another creative organisation. And to be judged as writers.” He identifies an implicit barrier to Deaf and disabled artists:

“There’s that word excellence – it’s a very subjective word – it’s used as a barrier by people in positions of power who think their buildings continuously produce excellence. Everyone strives for it: but artists shouldn’t be judged because they have an impairment.”

For more information go to their website here.