Breach Theatre’s Rise and Rise

Founded by Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett, the company are returning to the Arts Centre from 1-3 November 2024 as part of Rebels With A Cause! – a season of special events and activities celebrating the venue’s 50th anniversary.

Breach Theatre have created After the Act- a fabulously funny and queer new musical reflecting the experience of the LGBTQ+ community following the infamous Section 28 legislation and its subsequent repeal.

Ellice and Billy studied English and Theatre at the University of Warwick, graduating in 2015. They were both involved in a number of productions during their time at Warwick, first working together on a version of the Greek comedy, Lysistrata - with Billy writing and directing the production, which was staged in the Helen Martin Studio, and Ellice playing the lead.

Both feel that Warwick Arts Centre played an influential role in their development as artists. As they pursued their artistic education through their academic pursuits, they also went to see lots of experimental works that visited the Arts Centre.

The Breach Theatre founders also embraced The University of Warwick’s wider theatre scene, taking parts in a number of student companies (including Codpiece Theatre and Freshblood New Writing) and also events, including Warwick Student Arts Festival and the Emerge Festival. These gave them opportunities (and space) to write and produce work, helping them learn their trade in a supportive and safe environment, and later giving them the confidence to move from making student work to pursuing a professional theatre career.

When, in their final year at Warwick, Ellice and Billy formed their own company, neither could imagine they’d still be working together a decade later.

Joined by actor, filmmaker and fellow Warwick alumni Dorothy Allen-Pickard (who studied Film and French), a successful IATL seed funding application helped launch Breach. With producer Sally Cowling coming on board, Dorothy documented their work and was Dramaturg, with Billy and Ellice leading on projects.

For Ellice, a key turning point was Breach’s show It’s True, It’s True, It’s True – a restaging of the 1612 trial of Agnostino Tassi for the rape of baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, which went on to pick up a clutch of major awards.

“I think for me it was the tour of It’s True, It’s True, It’s True when I realised for the first time that we were not part of Warwick’s alumni festival [Emerge], and it was our actual show being programmed, standing on its own, in our home space,” says Ellice. “It was amazing - Warwick students were really active and engaged, and wanted to talk after the show, which made us all the more nostalgic and thrilled to be there. 

“In some small way we were able to have that same impact on the students that other touring companies had had on us. 

“[And now] it’s great that almost a decade on, we are coming back to Warwick with a larger scale show, and to the main theatre.”

After The Act: A Section 28 Musical

After The Act: A Section 28 Musical is written by Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett, directed by Billy and the composer and musical Director is Frew. Merging a documentary style with devised theatre piece and original 1980s influenced synth music, the production weaves actual testimonies to tell a broader political story (a very Breach device). 

Individual stories that recount the impact of Section 28, including the prejudice and homophobia and lack of education around LGBTQ+ identities, is recounted. 

The show has been a real labour of love for all those involved and was performed at New Diorama in London and the Traverse in Edinburgh last year.

A full 15 years since they first performed at Warwick Arts Centre, and 10 years since the founders graduated from the University, both are looking forward to returning – especially as they are now one of the centrepieces of the Rebels With A Cause! season, which celebrates the venue’s 50 year role as a centre for activism.

“It’s hard to make political statement in these times, so it’s wonderful to have activism at the heart of this celebration, and [the season makes for] a great springboard for 50 more years,” says Ellice. 

“Warwick has a history of student activism which we were a part of in our time there; Warwick Arts Centre was always both educational as well as political, and Breach Theatre reflects these motivations in our work.” 

The University of Warwick has an engaged student community, making it a perfect location for a staging of After the Act. Funny, moving, political and challenging, it documents a major period in LGBTQ+ history, and a cause which united individuals and groups around a common cause.

“We make work about things that have happened in the past in order to discuss what’s happening in the present,” says Ellice. “The issues raised [in After the Act] still resonate in current discourse around how trans people are discussed in the media, in educational circles, and how trans rights are infringed by governments. We’re asking people to think about activism and personal politics, and politics on a larger scale; we’re educating them about an important period of history.”

Having hung out in the foyer as students, Warwick Arts Centre has proved to be a consistent thread in Ellice and Billy’s career, and – from performing in the Humanities building, to Arts Centre Studio, and now the main Theatre - a real-world indicator of Breach’s ambition and continuing success.

Says Ellice: “It feels like a real coming home, coming back to Warwick…”

More alumni return to Warwick

And they aren’t the only university alumni company returning to the arts centre over the coming months, as Breach are also joined by Barrel Organ – who were formed at the university in 2014 and have also gone on to major success.

Reflecting on both Breach and Barrel Organ’s return, and the importance of the arts centre in the development of such creative companies, Beth Byrne, Warwick Arts Centre’s Creative Director, said: "Engaging with our student body has always been a key component of our work at Warwick Arts Centre. 

“Whether students perform in a show through the many societies and learn how to create a stage set, how to light a show or the most effective ticketing set-up; whether they come to a concert, a talk or a show making use of vastly subsidised tickets; participate in a creative learning activity, a music group; or use one of our many practise rooms; we aim to cater for their needs. 

“In so doing we hope to help nurture and develop artists of the future, and this is one reason why there are a large number of alumni companies and collectives from the University of Warwick.  

“We are so delighted to showcase two of these alumni companies in our 50th Rebels with a Cause! season. Both companies are developing work that speaks of positive social change: Breach Theatre have created a fabulously funny and queer new musical reflecting the experience of the LGBTQ+ community following Section 28 legislation and its subsequent repeal; and Barrel Organ are co-creating a re-telling of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, working with a locally recruited collective of young people. 

“We are proud to have been a part of these artists' lives and work from the beginning and continue to support them in their professional work today."