Cheryl, Commonword’s Co-Artistic Director, has worked as a poet, playwright and director, and was a former Associate Director, New Writing/New Work at Contact.
Cheryl’s first residencies as a playwright in the 90s came directly from being part of Commonword’s still-running Global Majority writers’ workshop, Identity. And Commonword published her first poetry collection, Alaska, longlisted for the Polari Prize.
She’s been a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award winner as both writer [musical Heart and Soul, Oldham Coliseum Theatre] and director [Iron by Rona Munro, Contact]. Cheryl’s solo stage show Alaska featured in 2016’s A Nation’s Theatre, & 2019’s Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe & Wellcome Festival of Minds and Bodies in London.
Her film One Woman, an Unlimited Wellcome Collection Partnership commission, is touring festivals including the 2021 Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre, Barcelona’s L’Altre Festival, & Summerhall’s Digital Edinburgh Fringe.
She directed The Walk: A Sleeping Child for 2021’s Manchester International Festival, The Gift for Graeae’s Crips Without Constraints, and is teaching for Manchester Metropolitan University’s 2021 Acting course.