Recognition

A story about the legacy of Black classical music in Britain and the life of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure. The colour of the sonic Black notes voice meeting voice piercing through time At a prestigious music college, where most of her classmates are white, wealthy, and obliviously privileged, Song struggles to relate to the traditional syllabus. When she discovers the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, she learns of the legacy of Black classical music in Britain. His captivating scores inspire her, but the negative voices in her mind still threaten to drown them out. As Samuel's story unfolds alongside Song's own, Recognition asks how we can acknowledge and celebrate those who came before. Amanda Wilkin's beautiful play, co-created with Rachael Nanyonjo and produced by Talawa Theatre Company, premiered at Talawa Studios in Fairfield Halls, London, in June 2023, as part of This is Croydon, London Borough of Culture.

Amanda is a playwright and actress from London. In 2017 she was on the Royal Court and BBC London Writers' Groups. In early 2019 she wrote and performed The Little Sob as part of Dark Night of the Soul at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and returned there in early 2020 with Bessie Coleman about the first African American female pilot as part of Notes to the Forgotten She-Wolves. In 2020 she won the Verity Bargate Award for her play Shedding a Skin, which she performed at Soho Theatre to huge critical acclaim in summer 2021, before reviving it there in March 2022. The play was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2022, and she is now developing it for television with Three Tables. Her play Recognition, about the C19th's famous dual heritage composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, was presented originally as an audio play by 45North Ltd/Ellie Keel Productions, 2021, and has now been developed into a full-length piece to be presented as Talawa's headline show as part of Croydon's City of Culture 2023. Her play And I Dreamt I Was Drowning was selected for Theatertreffen Stückemarkt from over 350 plays submitted by over 60 countries to have a reading as part of the festival in Germany in May 2022, and she won the prize of a commission of a new work which will be staged at the Schauspiel Leipzig as part of the 2023/2024 season. Amanda is also under commission to Audible as part of their Emerging Playwrights Programme and to Headlong Theatre Company, having been Writer in Residence there 2021/2, and has just completed the Young Women Opera Makers residency 2021/22 at Festival D'Aix-en Provence. She is also writing her first feature for Joy Productions / Film 4.