PERFECT WORLDS
Perfect Worlds is a workshop programme for learning disabled people, delivered in care homes and other care settings.
Perfect Worlds replicates the politic, ethos and rigorous creative practices used to create our acclaimed theatre show Perfect Show For Rachel, bringing them into care and educational settings where disabled adults can create their own ‘perfect world’ over a series of creative sessions. Critically, this is a co-creation focused practice, so outcomes can widely vary and will be totally informed by the adults with whom we are working.
​Zoo Co will work with groups from care homes, daycare spaces and specialist educational settings in Croydon in 2025.
Each care home group will work with two Zoo Co artists to create their own responses to designing their ‘perfect world'. Zoo Co has 10 years' experience working with learning disabled people on creative projects.
There may be (will be!) multiple creative outcomes, including live performance, film, poetry, visual art, music or dance. There will be a moment where these creative responses are shared with a wider public - carers, families and friends, ensuring the people involved in each disabled adult's life have the opportunity to see what happens when we fully trust in disabled-led decision-making.
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Background context for this project
Our 5* show Perfect Show for Rachel is directed live on-stage by Rachel, who is learning disabled and lives in a care home. Innovative tech enables her to control everything from a custom-built accessible tech desk on stage, which directly controls sound, lights, video, and of course, the action on stage.
In 2024, more than 3,000 people saw the show in Brighton and London, with 21% of our audience identifying as disabled, and 31% as neurodivergent. It won the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award, and was awarded an Offie for access innovation.
This show is about looking at what happens when we decide to step fully into Rachel’s world, and work under her leadership. The show aims to stage Rachel’s ‘perfect’ 75 minutes live on stage each night, and includes Kylie Minogue drag acts, fight scenes, moving stories from Rachel’s life, Rachel’s favourite snacks, interactive games, as well as times each night where the company simply pauses, comfortably waiting on Rachel’s next move. Rachel is an incisive dramaturg each night and directs a powerful compelling show, moving and challenging audiences to rewire their assumptions about disabled people as ‘participants’, and creating an urgent case for disabled leadership and decision-making.
We are confident that this show’s impact is profound and sustained, and that the process we used to make it has many possible applications beyond the show itself.
Now, we have created a totally unique engagement model for bringing the creative practices we used to work with Rachel to broader demographics, working with more disabled adults.
If you work in a care setting in Croydon, and you're interested in hosting Perfect Worlds in 2025, please get in touch! flo@wearezooco.co.uk