Olney Theatre Center produces the U.S. Premiere of Sleepova in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab, March 26 – April 27, 2025. The play arrives in the DMV having won the 2024 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre (the London equivalent of “Off-Broadway”) and the UK Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright for author Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini. Paige Hernandez directs the four-actor ensemble of Tymetrias L. Bolden (Funmi), Ciara Hargrove (Elle), Nykila Norman (Rey), and Jasmine Proctor (Shan).
Whether or not sleepover parties with friends were part of your upbringing, you’re invited to join Elle, Shan, Funmi, and Rey at theirs. These four Black British teenagers are growing up fast, each coping with their unique challenges of disability, sexuality, religion, and family. But even these issues – whether living with sickle cell disease, coming out, a crisis of faith, or a romantic misadventure, are confronted with humor, sincerity, and optimism. The Guardian said the show has “All the clumsiness and wide-eyed excitability of the best coming-of-age dramas… an exhilarating tableau of imperfect young friendship and you leave wanting an invite to their next party.”
Playwright Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini says, “It has been a long dream of mine for my work to reach places and audiences I can’t get to. So to have Sleepova’s US premiere at the Olney Theatre Center is a dream come true. Sleepova is an invitation to audiences into the lives of these 4 young Black British girls and how differently we all come of age. I hope audiences come ready to laugh, dance and be reminded the power of friendships.”
Jason Loewith, Olney Theatre’s Artistic Director says “Ever since I saw Sleepova in London at the amazing Bush Theatre, I’ve wanted to share it with our audiences. Matilda is a singular playwright, and with this play, she celebrates a community at once utterly familiar and strikingly different from what we know here in the United States. We’re so proud to give Matilda’s play its American premiere.”
Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is a multi-award-winning, bionic playwright, author and filmmaker of Nigerian heritage from London. Matilda was selected as a Star of Tomorrow 2020 by Screen Daily Magazine; a feature film screenplay they co-wrote with Gabriel-Bisset Smith was selected as part of The Brit List 2020; they were an Arts Foundation Futures Award 2021 Finalist; a BFI Flare x BAFTA 2023 mentee; and Inevitable Foundation x Loreen Arbus Elevate Collective Award Grantee 2024. As a playwright, Matilda’s debut play Muscovado premiered in October 2014 and subsequently won the Alfred Fagon Audience Award 2015. They have written audio dramas for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and Audible. Matilda’s next play Little Miss Burden premiered at the Bunker Theatre in 2019 and won a Popcorn Finalist Award 2020. Sleepova is her most recent work and the first to be performed outside the United Kingdom.
She explains that, “I adopted the term ‘bionic’ when I became a full-time wheelchair user and had metal implanted into my leg after a traumatic fracture, even though the term encompasses my experiences from birth, that I have always needed some form of technology, equipment, or adaptation to live.” One of Sleepova’s main characters, Shan, is living with sickle cell disease, Ibini explains, “I wrote Shan and her experience in a way that I would have loved to see this type of character growing up. Living with a chronic condition isn’t the be-all and end-all of my life. And that there are other ways to live, and just because my life doesn’t look like that of my peers or siblings even, doesn’t make my life tragic or any less valid. It’s simply different.”
The artistic team, in addition to Hernandez, includes Scenic Designer Shartoya R. Jn. Baptiste, Lighting Designer John D. Alexander, Costume Designer Danielle Preston, Sound Designer Cresent R. Haynes, Projections Designer Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor, Intimacy and Fight Choreographer Sierra Young, Dialect Coach Gerrad Alex Taylor, Assistant Director Dannielle Hutchinson, Assistant Lighting Designer Niya John, Stage Manager Kelsey N. Jenkins, and Assistant Stage Manager Ebony Gennes. Understudy swings for the production are Leilani Clendenin (Funmi/Rey) and Courtney Simmons (Elle/Shan).
To help audiences get in the Sleepova spirit, anyone attending a performance in pajamas can receive 25% off their first drink!
Sleepova was commissioned by and premiered at the Bush Theatre in London, Artistic Director Lynette Linton.
Sleepova runs March 26 – April 27, 2025, in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD. Tickets range from $31 – $95. Discounts are available for groups, seniors, teachers, active military, first responders, and students. Visit olneytheatre.org/discounts for details. Purchase online at olneytheatre.org/sleepova or call 301-924-3400.
AFFINITY NIGHTS FOR SLEEPOVA
African Diaspora Affinity Night
Thursday, April 24 at 7:30 pm
Special Post-Show Discussion
The characters in Sleepova juggle multiple identities, but one of particular importance is their connection to their Nigerian and Jamaican heritage. This is a special performance for everyone connected to or interested in the global African Diaspora.
Girls Night Out
Thursday, April 17
Pre-show drinks at 6:30 pm
Show at 7:30 pm
Grab your BFF and come for drinks in the Mezzanine on the Roberts Mainstage prior to the performance of Sleepova in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab.
ABOUT OLNEY THEATRE CENTER
Founded in 1938 as a summer playhouse, Olney Theatre Center (OTC) now produces world and American premieres of plays and musicals, and reimaginings of familiar titles year-round; presents the work of leading companies and artists; tours nationally and locally; teaches students of all ages; and mentors a more inclusive generation of theatermakers. For more than 8 decades, OTC has brought impactful theater performance and education to its community, helping to grow the vibrancy and vitality of the Washington, DC region.
Over the years, some of the biggest names in theater and film have appeared on Olney’s stages, including Tallulah Bankhead, Helen Hayes, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Bob Fosse, Phillip Bosco, Eve Arden, Eva Gabor, Burl Ives, Jose Ferrer, Carol Channing, Olivia d’Havilland, Tony Randall, Paulette Goddard, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Jane Seymour, Anne Revere, Frances Sternhagen, Arthur Treacher, James Broderick, Olympia Dukakis, Sir Ian McKellen, Marica Gay Harden, John Colicos, Uzo Aduba, Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, Robin de Jesus, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and Bernadette Peters, among many, many others.
Olney Theatre is now the cultural anchor of a rapidly changing region and serves one of the most diverse, best educated, and wealthiest counties in the country. Situated on the unceded land of the Piscataway-Conoy people, the Olney area was once a rural farming community with a unique Quaker heritage. Now the area is occupied by every kind of family that makes up 21st-century America, along with major corporations, shopping districts, civic associations, non profit organizations and a diverse collection of houses of worship. Montgomery County’s 1 million residents play a dynamic role in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, and are a driving force behind the region’s creative economy.
