Hi! I'm Alexandra 'Alex' Donnachie (she/her) and I'm a South London born and bred 6ft tall half-Scottish caffeine fuelled...
ACTRESS
I am an award-winning actress and award-nominated writer and theatre maker. My writer-performer credits include: twenty-eight (DEM Productions: Theatre 503); When We Died (Carbon Theatre: Vaults Festival 2020, Edinburgh Fringe Online 2021, Bruntwood Prize long-listed); 3 Years, 1 Week and a Lemon Drizzle (UK Tour, Edinburgh Fringe 2018).
Further acting credits include: Atomic 50 (Blackhorse Workshop); Return to Elm House (Battersea Arts Centre); The Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley (BBC One/Book Lapping Productions; BAFTA Winner 2019). I also appear in numerous audio dramas for Big Finish and Audible and play series regular, Jacqueline 'Jackie' Tate in the Dark Shadows audio drama series. I even got to write an episode for Series 3, due for release later this year.
In June of this year, I was awarded the Best Performance Award by Annie Rowe CDG for my portrayal of Kathy in short film, Trish: As Seen on TV. I am currently developing my fourth full-length play and the screen adaptation of When We Died.
and... WRITER.
You can read a little more about some of the plays I've written below but I've also written a number of opinion pieces and blogs for various publications in my time. You can read some of those here!
I also...FACILITATE & TUTOR.
I have over ten years of experience working as a LAMDA tutor, working with young people hoping to grade at introductory level, right through to Grade 8 (Gold). I specialise in the Reading for Performance, Acting, Verse and Prose and Speaking in Public syllabi and also offer one-off or regular one-to-one monologue preparation sessions and public speaking tutorials.
As a facilitator, I regularly work in primary and secondary schools across the UK, often on behalf of companies like KIT Theatre, delivering the thrilling Inspiration Days or The Old Vic, running workshops which delve into the wide range of skills and jobs needed to develop any of their main house theatre productions. More recently, I have been leading sessions which I've designed alongside my own projects. This includes an ACE funded series of workshops geared towards students in higher education and which focus on safeguarding in writing and theatre making.
If any of the above sounds even a little bit interesting and you'd like more information, don't hesitate to get in touch!
THE WORK I MAKE, WRITE AND SORT OF PUT TOGETHER
The work I make myself mostly focuses on telling real stories (usually my own, sometimes somebody else’s and more often than not, a mix of everybody’s) in new and exciting forms. Always fun and never without the help and support of my friends and colleagues who specialise in all areas of theatrical magic.
THE HELLENIC GAMES
Over the last few months, I've been working with my friends and co-creators Michael Armstrong and Daniel Millar - in addition to an incredible team of theatre makers and performers and some of the best access consultants who are working in theatre today - to develop a large-scale immersive family theatre show with integrated accessibility. We're aiming for the production, which explores the Olympic and Paralympic values, to open in Summer 2024 alongside the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In November 2022, thanks to a grant from Arts Council England and endless support from Battersea Arts Centre and Wimbledon Library, we ran a 2-week R&D which culminated in a sharing to a group of 30 young people from a local primary school and their teachers. We also invited along a number of our friends, colleagues and mentors who specialise in making and supporting immersive and family theatre. We received incredible feedback across the board, as well as really useful tips on how we can make what we've made even better moving forward.
With that in mind, we're now looking to run a 2nd R&D later this year before we enter rehearsals in 2024. If you're a producer or programmer brave enough to let us take over your venue with a couple of hapless athletes, a handful of olives and a whole pandora's box full of family theatre magic, please do get in touch. We have plenty of documentation to share with you, including the link to a short film which gives a glimpse into what we were able to achieve in just 2 weeks!
You can contact us via my website or email the team at admadatheatre@gmail.com
Photo credit: Alex Hedley
Photo credit: Kate Donnachie (Company Member)
WHEN WE DIED
We were incredibly lucky to finish our run at the 2020 VAULT Festival right before the country went into its first national lockdown. My Bruntwood Playwriting Award long-listed play, When We Died (directed by Andy Routledge and produced by Carbon Theatre), received lots of lovely ★★★★ reviews and kind words (see below!) and the team couldn’t be more chuffed or grateful.
‘Donnachie is really terrific… It’s quietly hold-your-breath gripping.’
– Lyn Gardner for Stagedoor.
Read Lyn’s full review here or find out more about the production, its stellar creative team and read more reviews here.
Almost a year to the day after we opened at VAULT Festival, the team behind When We Died was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to adapt the play for film with Manchester based Eight Engines and create 4 workshops centred around safeguarding and protecting the wellbeing of creative teams and audiences alike when making trauma-based theatre. We were thrilled to have the film stream online throughout August 2021 as part of the Edinburgh Fringe's digital programme.
This year, exactly three years to the day since we ended our run at VAULT Festival, myself and the When We Died team, along with some new faces, are going back into rehearsals to brush off the cobwebs, ready to go out on tour across the UK. Check out some of the venues we'll be taking the show, and in some cases its accompanying workshops, to.
Town and Gown, Cambridge, 22 March
The Dukes. Lancaster, 30 March
Harrogate Theatre, Harrogate, 31 March
Greenwich Theatre, London, 1 April
Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2 April
We still have some venues to confirm and we gaps in the tour schedule too, so if you're a programmer or interested in chatting about bringing When We Died to your venue or festival, please get in touch here or email Courtenay Johnson of Carbon Theatre.
Photo credit: Ali Wright
Photo credit: Ali Wright
twenty-eight
twenty-eight (directed by Jessica Lazar, produced by D.E.M. Productions - and written by me), is a play about motherhood, creativity and theatrical form, opened at the brilliant Theatre 503 in February 2022 - having originally been set to storm stages in 2020 - to lovely audiences and even lovelier feedback. I'm super proud of this play for very many reasons, not least because it was my first commission.
Watch this space for news of future runs and iterations. And in the meantime, why not have a watch of one of our trailers?
Photo credit: Darren Bell
Film credit: Emily Lunnon
DARK SHADOWS
I've been a part of the Dark Shadows (Big Finish Productions) universe for a few years now having played series regular Jacqueline 'Jackie' Tate in the audio drama series since 2014. Jackie means the world to me and voicing her is one of the best jobs I've ever had. So, imagine how chuffed I was when I was asked to write a Jackie-heavy episode for the upcoming series. It will still be a while before the series is available to listen to, but keep your eyes - and ears - open!
3 Years, 1 Week and a Lemon Drizzle
3 Years, 1 Week and a Lemon Drizzle is an autobiographical play which I created and perform with my younger sister, Kate. The play is about how our close sibling relationship was affected by an eating disorder when we were teenagers.
The play enjoyed a small UK tour and a run at Edinburgh in 2018 where we received lovely reviews like this one. And this one.