Our Mission
Founded in Oxford in 2008, Ba-Laylah Productions is dedicated to creating visceral, bizarre, and highly stylized theatre, adapting and re-translating “unadaptable” works of 19th and 20th century European literature, melding together works of the theatrical canon, and pushing the limits of interactive and immersive theatre. Inspired by the site-specific, immersive work of Punch Drunk, as well as by the rich visual style of Georgian directors Levan Tsuladze and Robert Strurua – two directors who use the stage as a place where a myriad powerful cultural and mythological symbols meet – Ba-Laylah Productions is dedicated to fusing a passion for the “classics” with a sense of innovation and play.
Ba-Laylah’s first production was a new translation of Luigi Pirandello’s Come tu me vuoi (As You Desire Me). Since then, Ba-Laylah has been experimenting with classic texts in a number of ways, including a promenade reimagining of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a new adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, a multimedia-based resetting of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the twilight of the silent film era, and, most recently, O Human Child, which fused together the works of Shakespeare, Keats, Rossetti, and Yeats in a single, site-specific, immersive piece, which invited audience members to follow four tormented lovers, a pair of innocent newlyweds, and a changeling child into an enchanted forest…
Ba-Laylah has performed at a number of venues, including the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and the Coronet Theatre, London, where sequences from O Human Child were performed as part of Satan’s Rout, sponsored by the Last Tuesday Society.
Ba-Laylah’s first production was a new translation of Luigi Pirandello’s Come tu me vuoi (As You Desire Me). Since then, Ba-Laylah has been experimenting with classic texts in a number of ways, including a promenade reimagining of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a new adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, a multimedia-based resetting of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the twilight of the silent film era, and, most recently, O Human Child, which fused together the works of Shakespeare, Keats, Rossetti, and Yeats in a single, site-specific, immersive piece, which invited audience members to follow four tormented lovers, a pair of innocent newlyweds, and a changeling child into an enchanted forest…
Ba-Laylah has performed at a number of venues, including the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and the Coronet Theatre, London, where sequences from O Human Child were performed as part of Satan’s Rout, sponsored by the Last Tuesday Society.
Core Team
TARA ISABELLA BURTON -
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Elizabeth butterworth - producer
![]() Elizabeth Butterworth is pursuing an MSc in Comparative and International Education at New College, Oxford. She has worked as a stage manager, assistant stage manager, props master, and production manager for student and community theater productions in the US, including The Skin of Our Teeth, Richard III, and Spring Awakening. She joined Ba-Laylah as a stage manager for O Human Child, and will be producing Ba-Laylah's newest show, Midnight at the Rue Morgue: the Madness of Edgar Allen Poe.
Liz’s research focuses on primary school arts education. She directs a program, which she founded in 2009, that offers free music lessons to kids from low-income backgrounds in her home-city of Worcester, Massachusetts. After theater and music, Liz’s favorite things include Latin poetry, bad mystery novels, and strong coffee. |
ALICE YOUNG -
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FILIP FERDINAND FALK HARTELIUS - PERFORMER![]() Filip is currently studying philosophy and economics at University College, Oxford. In both school and university he has choreographed and danced in several shows, including ‘The Barefaced Night’ and ‘A Soldier’s Tale.’ This is Filip’s second performance with Ba-Laylah, first falling in love with the company’s experimental theatre in ‘O Human Child.’ A curiosity and excitement for language and expression is palpable in both his theatrical and academic career; in the latter case, he is especially interested in the philosophy of both logic and language, which he hopes to pursue at the graduate level.
Roles: Doctor, Mesmerist, Reynolds RoSIE POLYA -
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CLAIRE RAMMELKAMP -
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ALEX WILSON -
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