MY MIND IS FREE

Sam Hall is an award-winning Medway-based playwright and creative writing teacher. She writes plays, novels, short stories and poetry. Her most recent play was long-listed for The Theatre West Award.  

 

She was a member of the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme, and studied Advanced playwriting with playwright Jane Bodie (2004) and Directing with Director/Writer Olusola Oyeleye (2005). She has an MA in Creative Writing: Plays and Screenplays from City University (2008). Her plays have been performed in the UK and internationally: PRETTY BOY, The White Bear Theatre London 2004; HE SAID, SHE SAID, The Landor Theatre London 2005; SEA MONSTERS AND VESSELS AT SUNSET part of 'The Turner Plays', The Etcetera Theatre London 2008; SEVEN TUNES ON THE FLUTE (Sette melodie per flauto), Trend festival of British writing, Teatro Belli Rome 2013; THE AUDITION part of 'She Writes: What's through the door?', Canal Cafe Theatre London and Rochester Literature Festival 2013; LOVE NEVER RETURNS MORE part of 'The Spirit of my Dream', Rochester Literature Festival 2014; THE FINAL FRONTIER, Waterloo East Theatre London, 2015. She has also written a number of plays for young children.  MY MIND IS FREE, tour of  London and the South East 2015 and The Edinburgh Festival 2017.  THE ADMIRAL'S TEA PARTY - a site specific devised community history event, 2017. 

 

The text of MY MIND IS FREE can be purchased from Wordsmithery.  

 

Sam was inspired to start thinking about human trafficking after being approached by Merton Against Trafficking in 2014 to write a short play on the subject for a fundraising evening. In doing her research she was shocked to learn more about the scale of the problem nationally: ‘Like a lot of people, I knew what human trafficking was, but the scale of the problem in the UK really shocked me. In doing my research I have come across numerous examples of people trafficked in many hideous ways into and within the UK.’ Investigating the issue made her want to develop a longer play on the topic; which resulted in MY MIND IS FREE.  

 

Sam has done extensive research with anti-trafficking charities, in particular, Merton Against Trafficking, Blythswood Care, ECPAT UK, and The Medaille Trust, and is grateful for their assistance in the development of the play. The play is inspired by true life stories, which have been fictionalised.