verity healey is an international theatre journalist and artist working in theatre, moving image, stills and community arts projects with a strong focus on human rights and the environment. She is currently based between North Yorkshire and London.
verity is passionate about social and political justice and championing human and animal and earth rights.
Current projects
verity healey is the creator and creative producer of outside it is beautiful, a community audio stories project set on the Bentham train line. It connects train passengers and communities and unknown landscapes via the power of story to encourage a greater sense of environmental responsibility and celebration of the British countryside and natural landscape. The project received project grant funding from Arts Council England and Northern and in kind support from Culturapedia for an R&D on the train route in October 2024. It culminated in a 20 min audio drama, Ghost of the Sky, voiced by locals who live along the line and written by Sarah Hehir. It is available to listen to at Settle Stories Listening Gallery and on www.oiib.org.uk & The Bentham Train Line website.
Currently verity is working on the project which will begin in full in September 2025. New partners and collaborators include Poetic Consultations and Letters to the Earth and guest facilitator & mentor, Wendy Pratt.
verity is also moving into theatre and multimedia producing beyond 2025, with more projects, including a play on a train planned.
Theatre journalism & associated writing
As a critical arts writer she has worked with Belarus Free Theatre, Pussy Riot, undercover in Belarus ( a dictatorship) and with Good Chance Theatre working with refugees in Paris. . She is an annual visitor and documenter of Kosovo's Theatre Showcase and the country's continued growth and quest for peace with Serbia. verity has also written for BBC Arts, Whats on Stage, The Stage, The British Council, Exeunt, The Theatre Times and Howlround. She has a profound interest in human rights and politics and the environment.
Academic publications
2024: Kennan Institute's archive on documentary theatre in East Europe and Russia led by visiting associate professor Susanna Weygandt.
2023: Routledge study guides on Contemporary European Theatre and Performance (with a chapter on Belarus Free Theatre)
2021: Howlround anthology
2019: European Theatre Convention Handbook
Commissions
Qendra Multimedia, independent theatre production company in Prishtina, Kosovo: a monograph on Qendra and independent theatre in Kosovo.
Film and video
Her visual work includes conventional film making, but refuses to be categorised or pigeon holed by it. A period of time away from film to write theatre journalism has seen her reflect on and consider her intellectual concerns in her own moving image practice. She is now actively working on experimental artists' film and video with environmental themes.
Previous films include a music video commission from English National Opera about the Iraq Arms Inspector, Dr David Kelly. verity healey is also a self-shooter, such work includes a short documentary on Yarl's Wood: A National Concern. Other films include a take on Ridley Scott's Boy and a Bicycle, with a nod to Derek Jarman, and My Pillow the Buddha, about a young Polish female living alone in London. As a self-shooter verity healey worked in the charity and commercial sectors in Devon making work for the Arts Council, Devon County Council, Plymouth Theatre Royal and the Christian Alliance.
Photography
Stills work includes a commission from Belarus Free Theatre to visualise and write "biographies" with a difference about their ensemble for their new website. This involved living in Belarus for two weeks and working undercover (Belarus Free Theatre are banned by the dictatorship government in Belarus) photographing the company's every move. There are some examples of this work in the images section of this website.
verity healey's stills work have been published by the Calvert Journal, Belarus Free Theatre and Howlround. The artist has an interest in landscape photography, with a focus on line and texture. Currently she is exploring ICM works, and returns to photograph North Yorkshire's Cropton Forest, where a part of the forest has been felled to introduce native species of trees. ICM allows the artist to explore marks and swirls and the sense of movement that a still image can sometimes give.
Facilitation
As a film facilitator, verity healey has extensive experience working with young people teaching film. She has also tutored for Animated Exeter as a stop-motion tutor. verity healey also has experience working with SEND students with complex and behavioural needs and autism. Working with such students has opened her eyes to the multitude of ways humans experience the world, and also to the way in which modern society shuts such people out of "normal' society.
Current projects:
as a creative producer & community artist: outside it is beautiful (current)
the park is like water
fall(ing) rigg
publications
Extinction Rebellion, Whats on Stage, The Stage, BBC Arts, The Calvert Journal, The British Council, SEE Stage, The Theatre Times, Exeunt, European Theatre Convention, Open Democracy, European Stages, Howlround, Ministry of Counterculture (Belarus Free Theatre publication) and more
FILM/PHOTOGRAPHY/TEACHING/FACILITATION
Commission from English National Opera ; The Death of the Government Inspector - music video
Belarus Free Theatre - word and image commission
Girl and a Bicycle, Yarl's Wood: A national Concern, My Pillow the Buddha own work as writer and director
Facilitator for Wizard Theatre
Facilitator for Cineclub
residencies:
shortlisted for Tweed River Culture's Wild Hearts (Border Forest Trust) in the Scottish uplands in Dumfries.
Contact: collcreative@yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk