Lauryn Ajufo, the British actress who landed a British Independent Film Award nomination for “Boiling Point,” is set to step into the role that first launched Michaela Coel‘s career in an upcoming revival of Coel’s landmark semi-autobiographical one-woman debut play.
“Chewing Gum Dreams,” originally developed by Coel as her final-year show at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, was first performed publicly in 2012 at London’s The Yard Theatre before being transferred to The Shed at the National Theatre in 2014. It would eventually form the basis of Coel’s TV breakthrough “Chewing Gum.”
The revival at Theatre503 — a co-production with British African heritage theatre company tiata fahodzi — will see Ajufo play Tracey Gordon, a restricted, religious virgin, who wants to have sex and learn more about the world. The play is described as a “fierce, funny, and big- hearted journey through first love, last days of school and the moments that shape who we become.”
This new production is directed by Theatre503’s award-winning artistic director, Anthony Simpson-Pike, whose credits include the Olivier-Award winning “The P Word,” “Lava” (nominated for best director at the Black British Theatre Awards) and “Grenfell: in the Words of survivors” at the National Theatre / St Anne’s Warehouse, New York.
