We are Muddled Muse, a trans-inclusive sapphic-centred theatre company who are hungry for authentic, hopeful and joyful Sapphic story-telling.
We want to see our lives reflected in the stories we hear and see, in a way that holds space for the mundane, for the playful, and the nuanced.
We aim to make theatre and host events that are created by Sapphics for Sapphics.
We want to encourage and spotlight more representative and diverse sapphic creation and to build a network of creatives.
AND WHO ARE WE?
Bella Finlayson (she/they) is a theatre director, performer, and artist. With a BA in Drama from the University of Exeter, they have trained with the National Youth Theatre and the Queer School of Live Art. Bella’s recent work explores the intersection of performance, social justice, and queer identity.
Over the past year, Bella has been part of the Made In Bristol theatre-making residency at the Bristol Old Vic and a resident artist at Acta Community Theatre through the Elevate programme, which focuses on socially engaged creative practices. They also participated in the Blueprint programme at Tobacco Factory Theatres, where they learned about producing theatre and co-produced the sold-out performance festival Protest of the Everyday, exploring daily acts of resistance. Bella served as co-movement director for Dead On Our Feet with Dimba Damba Theatre at the Bristol Old Vic and is currently working with Move Until Dusk, an outdoor movement company.
Previous projects include Gay Pirates, How to Safely Dispose of Friendship, and The Devil’s Wedding. Bella is passionate about creating theatre that prioritizes care, softness, and queerness.
Nelly Weston (she/her) is a queer-feminist playwright, screenwriter and artist from Birmingham, creating work that is introspective, textural, haunting and playful, and provides voice to the under-represented. She enjoys working with ensembles and using a combination of expressive physicality and punchy, witty dialogue to walk the line between the ethereal and the tragic, the silent and the screaming.
She holds a first class degree in Drama from the University of Exeter, where she was the Artistic Director of their New Writing theatre society ‘Theatre with Teeth’ and wrote her first play ‘Me, Myself, Myself, Myself, Myself’ - a playful, vibrant piece exploring depression and self-isolation, and produced at fringe festival “Make-Tank Mini-Fest” in 2021, described as offering ‘both a sombre insight into the struggles of young people… as well as a hilarious and playful interpretation of the conversations that happen between the various personae that inhabit our psyches’ .
She went on to train at the National Youth Theatre in 2021, and this year achieved her Masters in ‘Drama Writing’ from The Bristol Old Vic Theatre school, and was also part of BFI SouthWests Queer Storytelling Cohort of 2024.
AND WHAT IS “SAPPHIC”?
Sapphic is an umbrella term originally used to describe relationships between women. It now includes Lesbian, Bisexual and Pansexual Women and Non-Binary people (if the term resonates with them).
It orginates from the anicent Greek poet Sappho and her writing that celebrated her love for women and her muses of all genders…
(She was really cool.)
