(Liz Jadav, June 2026; originally posted on Linkedin)
‘A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood’. In 2025 I was paid to perform this play. Now I am paying to do it. If you’re asking ‘why?’ there’s a short answer, and a long one.
In brief: I love performing this play and seeing how men and women of all ages connect with it. It’s a great workout for me as a performer.
But as this isn’t the-brand-formerly-known-as-Twitter, and I have more space, I’ll give the long answer. Because there’s more to it, and less about me.
‘A Beginner’s Guide to Widowhood’ started with a bereavement. Omar Khan conceived the play out of his own experience and framed it from his mum’s point of view. He worked on it (with writer Rae Mainwaring and a strong creative team) for five years before I joined in and we took the final piece before the public. And now, his work done, he’s put it to one side.
But there is this script! This playable, emotive, truthful, funny script that Rae and Omar created and sweated over, literally for years, that I explored and learned, and that resonated with, affirmed, challenged and entertained (just seven) audiences. What would happen to it now? So much new writing – so much really good new writing – is produced once and no more. I could keep this script going. All it would take was permission.
Omar gave me permission and Rae and her agent agreed. And I became a producer.
The first job of the producer? Find the money. In my case, this has involved saving up, in the old-fashioned, piggy-bank sense. For the brief reasons above, I started as soon as the tour ended, before anything was agreed, giving me about nine months to gather enough for a week’s rehearsal (team, space) and three more before the next big outlay.
As I saved and started to prepare, the reasons ‘why’ grew, and suddenly producing became a creative act in itself.
So, here, in a large nutshell, is the long reason:
I want to celebrate this script and the lives – and deaths – behind it. It will stretch me in ways that better paid but less taxing roles can’t, and that is good. I want to hear sad people laughing together, as I do each time I play this role. I want this story, with its themes of grief and isolation, to be a means of connection and an encouragement to community. And, as grief and isolation are available on the smallest of budgets, I want this production to be accessible to anyone who would like to share it.
I’m targeting small venues, with the aim of reinforcing their relationships with their neighbours. And by offering a discussion time after each performance, I hope there will be connections made amongst the audience too.
I haven’t written a business plan. I’m just going to share the play with as many people as I can, a few at a time.
Liz Jadav, June 2026