Betyl is a small, London-based, boundary pushing theatre company making work at the intersection of the classical and the contemporary. At its core is a collaboration between queer theatre artists Bailey Edwards (performer/writer) and Mia Hull (director/dramaturg). Betyl’s first collaborations emerged out of a rigorous physical practice, training with the SITI Company, Kameron Steele and the Suzuki Company of Toga in Japan. 

The result has been a series of highly physical pieces that unsettle an audience’s relationship with space and performance. Sometimes this means staging work in unexpected environments: barns, former frat houses, a crowded sitting room couch, outdoor showers. Other times, it means eating a grapefruit—skin, seeds and all—blurring the line between theatre and performance art and allowing the audience to experience the doing of the thing itself, not its representation.

We are occupied by how live performance is uniquely suited to answering pressing issues—sustained attention and community connection—to create work that enables the experience of duration and communal sharing of space.

Photo by Harper Simon