Let Me Count the Ways

Let Me Count the Ways is a spoken word solo show which draws on speculative and realist storytelling to explore love, care and intimacy. It speaks directly to the experiences of other Black queer women, at how self perception is shaped and changed by the communities we find ourselves within/without. Initially inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, Let Me Count the Ways was written as a way of exploring how we are shaped by our interpersonal relationships. In this way, this is a solo show about isolation and connection, about intimacy and indifference. Set in a messy bedroom, the show is also about mental health and how relationships can both harm and heal, help and hinder a recovery. Taking inspiration from work such as Audre Lorde’s Zami and Nalo Hopkinson’s novel The Salt Roads, Let Me Count the Ways blends speculative and more realist storytelling to explore how power can be relinquished and (re)claimed through the ways we relate to one another. The aim of this project is to create a work which gives a rounded view of a Black queer woman’s experience, looking at how the communities we (fail to) form are complicated by racism, misogyny and homo/biphobia. In addition, this play will examine how the pandemic, particularly the experiences of isolation therein, has shaped and changed self understanding.