Her defiance comes in a half-rapped song in which she urges herself to stay strong. In another part of the room, Prince oversees the rehearsal of a scene in which Sylvia, played by Genesis Lynea, faces dying as she is force-fed by doctors. ZooNation originated as a dance company, and Sylvia’s key moments – such as Black Friday, the demonstration in 1910 where, for six hours, 300 women were assaulted by police, physically and sometimes sexually, outside the Houses of Parliament – have been imagined in the language of moving bodies.
In one part, members work on breakdancing and one-on-one combat scenes. But now the success of the Tony award-winner should allow her shows bigger stages: “Hamilton could do the world of good to this idea of what hip-hop is.”īack in the rehearsal room, the cast are back in sportswear. “ there’s been stigma,” says Prince, of the idea of making a commercial hip-hop theatre show. It’s inevitable that comparisons will be made. Like Lin Manuel Miranda’s creation, Sylvia reconfigures a white historical tale with hip-hop and a diverse cast, telling the story of Sylvia Pankhurst, the more radical daughter of the Suffragettes founder Emmeline. Even if Prince, who has co-written, choreographed and directed Sylvia, hadn’t halted another production to get it hastily staged during the centenary year of women getting the vote, 2018 would still have been awash with discussions about women’s rights: from #MeToo and Time’s Up to Ireland’s legalising of abortion, women’s bodies and the politics they hold have made headlines daily.īut Sylvia also arrives into a theatre landscape dominated by Hamilton, the US musical behemoth about the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton that transferred from Broadway to the West End last November. Hoyle is positive: “It’s going to be a dream.” She’s referring to the vigorous street dancing that she and her 15 castmates will have to perform in stiff cuffs and collars for Sylvia, a new musical about the battle for women’s suffrage with a hip-hop twist – one that would have been incongruous until a certain other historical musical came along.
“Are you comfy enough?” asks impressed director Kate Prince. She’s wearing her costume for the first time: a floor-length, tailored Edwardian gown that has three subtle adidas stripes running down the skirt in black velvet. There’s a knock on the door, and actress Izuka Hoyle is ushered in.
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