Matilda feyiṣayọ ibini’s work across stage, screen, and audio explores race, queerness, and chronic illness with humor and emotional depth. As a self-described bionic playwright, Ibini says their writing is always informed “by my experiences of being a disabled person in an ableist society.” Their characters, who often live on the margins, challenge familiar narrative conventions.
We spoke to Ibini over Zoom about their play Sleepova, an intimate portrait of four Black teenagers in East London. The play debuted at London’s Bush Theatre in 2023 and had its U.S. premiere this past March at Maryland’s Olney Theatre Center.
The idea for Sleepova had been percolating for years, ever since Ibini was given a prompt during a workshop at London’s Soho Theatre to “write what you know.” That got Ibini reflecting on what was missing from their childhood. “My siblings and I were never allowed to go on sleepovers,” they recalled. “My mum had seen the dangers out there for Black children, and she was worried the world wouldn’t care for us as much as she did.” In Sleepova, Ibini consciously avoided “a sleepover where something bad happens.” Instead, they created a place for their characters to explore “lots of complex and difficult things in our lives but in a safe space.”
In the scene that follows, grief over a father’s death brings the girls together. As in much of Ibini’s work, questions of care, and whom to care for, propel the story. Ibini’s responses to our questions appear as annotations throughout the excerpt below. This excerpt has been edited from the originally published play.
—the editors