What Happened When I Threw Babushka Out Into the Wild

What happens when you throw your heart and creative endeavour out into the wild?

It’s a question many artists ask—and, if we’re being honest, fear.

Six weeks before the first rehearsed reading of Babushka, I decided to find out.

With no producing experience, a considerable amount of naïve abandon and a somewhat questionable dose of stubbornness, I took my play from the safety of my computer and placed it in front of a live audience.

There was every possibility that it could go badly, badly wrong.

Discovering the machinery behind the stage

I was used to being onstage. It was my second home.

As an actor, you learn your lines, follow direction and bring your dramatic skills to the part. You concentrate on creating what the audience will eventually see.

What you don’t necessarily see is everything paddling furiously beneath the surface: the costs, contracts, promotion, administration, front of house, technical requirements and endless practical decisions that make a performance possible.

I see them now!

I had always believed that theatre technicians should be cherished. Until I produced my own event, however, I had never fully appreciated every person and every mechanism supporting what happens onstage.

The audience may applaud the performers, but those performers are standing on a foundation built by many other people.

One night and a room full of strangers

On 29 August 2026, Babushka received its first rehearsed reading at The Old Library Studio Theatre in Newbury.

It was heard by 41 people, many of whom were strangers to me when they entered the theatre.

Around half remained afterwards to join a feedback discussion and contribute to the play’s development. People also shared written responses, challenged elements of the work and helped me see more clearly where its strengths—and its problems—lay.

For one night, something that had existed primarily in my head became real in a room filled with other people.

That still feels extraordinary.

By then, however, my brain had officially rebelled.

Sitting still and concentrating were no longer available on my brain’s apps menu. I had attempted to write the play, perform it, produce the event, promote it and hold together all the practical details required to make the evening possible.

I suppose you could say I broke my brain a little.

The bitter irony was that my neurodivergence—woven into the story I was trying to tell—also made producing it ten times more difficult.

But I did it.

And, perhaps more importantly, I learned from it.

Saying I am a writer

At the beginning of my MA in Creative Practice, my endeavour felt reassuringly comfortable. I intended to develop my podcast, Kindness in Motion.

Then, during our first residential bootcamp in Sweden, I rather dramatically pivoted towards a creative identity I had spent years convincing myself was dangerous.

I dared to say:

I am a writer.

Saying those words out loud caused structural damage to the looped internal monologue that had helped keep me silent. It forced me to confront one of my deepest demons.

Babushka was born from that rebellion.

The play brings adult Suzanne into conflict and conversation with herself at 15, while the six-year-old child at the heart of their story remains unseen. It uses autobiographical theatre, humour and multimedia to explore how childhood bullying can continue shaping a person long after they have left school.

What began as a play has since grown into The Babushka Project.

What the project is trying to do

The Babushka Project is a theatre-led initiative exploring the lifelong impact of childhood bullying.

It would be foolish to promise that bullying can be prevented from ever happening. That really would be pie-in-the-sky thinking.

But perhaps, through storytelling, research, collaboration and honest conversation, we can improve how a child experiencing bullying is heard, supported and protected.

Perhaps we can intervene before that child walks out of secondary school carrying the weight of those experiences into adulthood.

My ambition is not to arrive with all the answers. I don’t have them.

I want to listen to educators, SENCos, pastoral and safeguarding professionals, psychologists, researchers, theatre practitioners and people with relevant lived experience. I want to understand what is already working, where the difficulties lie and what useful, responsible change might actually look like.

The most important lesson

Throwing Babushka out into the wild showed me what I am capable of achieving.

It also showed me that the next stage cannot—and should not—be built by one person.

That is uncomfortable for me.

Asking for help touches a fear so deeply ingrained that it is almost palpable. Doing everything myself can feel safer, even when doing everything myself leaves me exhausted and unable to think.

But the project will be stronger if it is challenged, informed and shaped by people whose knowledge and experiences differ from mine.

My lived experience is the reason the work exists. It is not evidence that I understand every bullied child, every adult survivor or every pressure faced by a school.

The project needs other voices.

An invitation into the wild

So, I am swallowing my fear and asking for help.

If you work in education, behaviour, safeguarding, pastoral care, psychology, research or theatre; have relevant lived experience; or would simply like to get involved—I would be very happy to hear from you.

This might begin with nothing more demanding than a short conversation.

I want to discover whether Babushka can become more than one woman telling her story. I want to explore whether it can open a space in which other people feel able to speak, listen and think differently.

Ultimately, I want children to leave school with their potential—and their souls—undimmed.

We are all bloody marvellous.

But there is a limit to what one person can achieve alone.

And so, The Babushka Project is stepping out into the wild.

Would you like to join me?