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Louise Wallwein

she/her Contact Patron

Louise Wallwein is an award-winning working-class poet, playwright and performer from Manchester, notorious as an explosive artist who detonates her audiences’ imaginations. Her lauded 2016 show GLUE - a frank and gripping true story of her meeting her birth mother, three decades after being put up for adoption - was supported by Contact and went on to be a bestselling book and hit BBC Radio 4 drama. Louise has long been a passionate advocate for Contact’s work, lending her talents to support them, including headline poetry and mixology event, Cocktails and Cinquains.

"I exploded into my first workshop. I was a volatile child and I had just left the care system. The world was afire with homophobia and youth unemployment. Contact became the place where I could test out my politics and learn to express them through Poetry and Theatre. It threw me a lifeline, and at the same time taught me how to be a collaborator. I wrote my first play aged 17. It took a while longer to become a professional artist, but when I did, I kept on detonating in Contact and many other theatres across the UK and around the world. Most of all though Contact was the first place I could just be Me."

A black and white image of a woman in wearing a coat, scarf and flat cap

Related items

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    15 September 2023
    We sat down with Keisha Thompson, writer of 14%, and the show’s director Nathan Powell, to find out more about the work, its inspirations and what you, the audience, will experience.
  2. A collaged image of Future Fires participants

    Introducing the Future Fires Cohort of 22/23

    20 April 2023
    Frankie Blaus, James Varney, Emmy Clarke, Weng-U Pun and Jamie Lee have each come up with socially engaged, community project ideas, and over the next twelve months, they will develop their ideas and make their projects come to life. We…
  3. three artists posing in three separate photos posing for the camera

    Announcing the Artists of 50 Hours of Freedom

    21 June 2023
    In celebration of International Non-Binary People's Day on 14 July, Contact and Manchester International Festival are bringing together three local, non-binary artists to create a new piece of work – and you’re invited to the sharing! This…

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