IN CONVERSATION

Special Issue

June 20, 2026

Sunday

12:00 – 1:00pm EDT

5:00 – 6:00pm GMT

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Pauline Mayers

Director| Performer| Theatre Maker

Living Through It: View From A Black British Performing Artist

Dance and Theatre Artist Pauline Mayers is a mul-disciplinary theatre maker, movement director and performer based in the North of England. She began her career as a Rambert-trained dancer appearing on stage, film and television. Her repertory dance company experience includes Janet Smith and Dancers, Diversions Dance, The Ensemble Group and Phoenix Dance Theatre. She also served as interim artistic director for Teeside Dance Initiative before transitioning to theatre in 2010.

Since then Pauline has developed a diverse background as a director, writer, movement director, performer and facilitator. She has collaborated with theatre and live art companies across the UK. Her movement direction and performance work includes collaborations with Selina Thompson LTD’s Twine (2024), live performance artist Paula Varjack’s Nine Sixteenths (2024) – which had a 2026 na+onal UK tour – and Improbable Theatre on An Improbable Musical (2022). In 2017 she was Associate Director on the Leeds Playhouse’s Queen of Chapeltown, working alongside director Amy Leach.

In her own work Pauline explores themes of iden+ty, participation, intimacy and care. Her critically acclaimed solo show What If I Told You, wriYen and performed by Pauline, premiered at Leeds Playhouse in 2016 and toured across the UK the following year. Presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017, it was shortlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. Returning for a sold-out four-night run at Leeds Playhouse in 2018, it also featured in the inaugural programme at Brixton House, London in 2022. Lyn Gardner of The Guardian described her work as “shaking up traditional theatre and power structures to put the audience in the picture”.

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