16/04/2026
Today is a special day in the ALSA calendar as it marks the 7th anniversary of the passing of probably our greatest ever collaborator, Al’s aunt Breda
Breda’s stroke survival story became our first play SWIM/STROKE. An idea which we still remember tentatively approaching her about 10 years ago in the living room of her cottage. She wasn’t one to mince her words and effectively told us “who the F would want to see that!?”.
She was super hesitant at first, naturally nervous of her and our family’s story being taken and turned into piece of theatre. However over the course of the development of the play which saw two key work-in-progress sharings at & in 2017 - Breda witnessed these first hand the powerful impact her inspirational story had on the audiences who experienced it
As a company, SWIM/STROKE started the ball rolling - allowed us figure out how to make a piece of theatre - enabled us to build partnerships and relationships with producers, programmers & audiences - got us on the Arts Council ladder - the fully funded production of the play was meant to take place in 2018 but on the eve of pre-production Breda was diagnosed with an aggressive stomach cancer and we pulled it. However, it did inspire a majorly reimagined version of the play in 2022, AT THE MOMENT EVERYTHING IS MISSING directed by .with.a.k and performed by Al, which enabled us to use the Arts Council funding received previously and to honour what we had set out to achieve with Breda & SWIM/STROKE all those years before
The process of making SWIM/STROKE effectively set in motion the fundamentals of how we have made all our theatre to date - to work with caring, rigorous and sound collaborators to make theatre that is inspired by the mundane, elemental & hopeful stories that surround us.
We feel so blessed to have these memories to look back on and cherish. The special energy of those days still reverberates deep within the bones of us.
“I am free in the Sea” - Breda Dalton ❤️ 🌊
Production images by
