Crazy Jane

A new work for Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, a force for change in Scottish theatre, creating world class projects and performances that place disabled artists centre stage. Funded by Creative Scotland.

The play, a fusion of text, dance and hip hop music, tells the story of the Moulin Rouge dance, Jane Avril, and her lifelong battle with mental illness. It charts her relationship with the artist who made her famous, Toulouse-Lautrec, and her treatment as a patient of Jean-Martin Charcot, the "Napoleon of the Neuroses" and founding father of neurology. Crazy Jane is a spectacular theatre, dance event with chroeography by Janice Parker Projects and an original razor sharp score by Scottish hip hop artists Hector Bizerk.

Nicola was commissioned to write this work about mental health and its relationship to art because of her previous work as a dramaturg with the company and her previous research in writing plays about the impact of trauma on human psychology. The research into the life story of Jeanne d'Avril and Toulouse Lautrec was fused with explorations in physical theatre, but also specifically incorporating sign language in the writing of the play itself as opposed to having interpreters stand at the side of the stage and sign.