Find out more about our artistic vision and our literary policy here.

Find out more about Graeae’s Artistic Vision

The award-winning Bradbury Studios are home to Graeae. Find out what’s special and how the building has transformed the way we operate. This section also contains details on how to hire our building, technical and access equipment.

Discover more about Bradbury Studios, the home of Graeae

Graeae was founded in 1980 by Nabil Shaban and Richard Tomlinson. Having met at college in Coventry, creating productions involving disabled people, their shared vision was to dispel images of defencelessness, together with prejudices and popular myths, around disabled people… through theatre, workshops and training.

By May 1980, a company of disabled performers was established to perform the first ever Graeae play Sideshow.

Writing in Disability, Theatre and Education in 1982, Richard Tomlinson said ‘The story (of the Graeae) appealed to both of us. We were happy to concoct morals on the subject of disabled people supporting each other.’

Since 1980, Graeae has achieved an international reputation as a pioneer of accessibility in world-class theatre, with the original impetus of its founders still at its very core.

Nabil Shaban remains a patron of the company.

Jenny Sealey joined Graeae as Artistic Director in 1997. In 2009, she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Honours and in 2012 Jenny co-directed the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings (GDIF). She also won the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award and was named on the Time Out London and Hospital Club h.Club100 list of the most influential and creative people in the creative industries.

Jenny is fuelled by her passion to find a new theatrical voice across the ‘aesthetics of access’ (sign language and audio description, diverse physicality and differing voices etc), from the very beginning of the artistic process.

Recent theatre credits for Graeae include: Reasons To Be Cheerful; Signs of a Diva; The Iron Man; Sequins and Snowballs; Against the Tide; The Garden and The Limbless Knight – A Tale of Rights Reignited.

For details on the rest of the Graeae team click here.

According to Greek legend, the three Graeae sisters shared an eye and a single tooth. When Perseus stole them, the sisters revealed how to kill the Medusa, but he broke his oath and threw away their life source. The Graeae ethos is grounded in working together and sharing resources.
We are often asked how Graeae is pronounced so we wanted to share the correct pronunciation: “grey-eye”.

The below animation, with illustration by Graeae patron Sir Peter Blake, narration by Graeae co-founder Nabil Shaban, words by Write to Play writer Sean Burn and animation by Dog & Rabbit, was originally created for the Graeae and Central Illustration Agency exhibition Reframing the Myth exhibition in February 2016.

The Graeae Sisters