Louise Wallwein
she/her Contact PatronLouise 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."
Related items
Changeling Annual 2023 is OUT NOW!
30 May 2023Changeling Annual is a collection of activities, comics, illustration, poetry, and short fiction for children. It’s a one-of-a-kind publication, because it ONLY features neurodivergent talent.Summer 23 at Contact: Inspiration, Education and New Creations
26 April 2023Is that the sun shining, or are we just imagining it?! Either way, we're here to inject some brightness into your life with our first wave of summer events to get stuck into at Contact. From fresh new work to summer schools and…Contact welcomes Bella Ikpasaja as Chair of the Board of Trustees
8 February 2024We are thrilled to announce a significant and inspiring change in leadership at Contact, as we welcome Bella Ikpasaja as the new Chair of the Board.