My journey with the Criterion Theatre began in 2023, long before I ever thought I’d step on its stage or produce anything there. It started with a poem. A very personal one.
Exotic was the first time I allowed myself to truly sit with the complexity of my identity—of being mixed race, of feeling like I belonged everywhere and nowhere, of carrying pride and pain in equal measure. It was inspired by my dear friend and fellow poet Shaniece Martin, whose fearless poetry on identity gave me the courage to write my own truth. It was also born from my involvement in the Mixed Rage exhibition at the MAC in Birmingham, where I collaborated with other artists exploring the reality of being mixed race—how beautiful, painful, and disorienting that space can be.
When Exotic was referred to the Criterion for a staged dramatisation, I was both honoured and terrified. I had never imagined that my words—so raw and vulnerable—could live beyond the page, let alone be brought to life in front of an audience. But that moment was transformative. Watching the piece unfold on stage, shaped through direction, performance, and collective interpretation, was the first time I understood the power of theatre to carry deeply personal stories and hold them in a shared space.
Exotic wasn’t just a poem—it was a reckoning. It was the first time I voiced the internal conflict of being biracial: the shapeshifting, the guilt, the hypervisibility and invisibility, the microaggressions, the fetishisation, the longing for purity in a world that demands categories. It was the first time I said aloud that being called exotic made my skin crawl. That I didn’t want to be someone’s fantasy or metaphor. That I was still learning how to love both sides of myself—without shame, without resentment.
Having that piece staged was a gateway. It connected me to a community of creatives I hadn’t known before. It introduced me to the Criterion, a space I would later perform and produce in. But more than anything, it reminded me that vulnerability is not weakness—it’s a starting point. And that sometimes, our most personal stories are the ones that resonate the loudest.
Exotic was the first time I allowed myself to speak from the liminal space I’ve always lived in. And from that moment, everything changed.