Black Love (NHB Modern Plays)

Love freely. Love freedom. Love. Meet Aurora and Orion: Sister and Brother. Constellations in time. More than blood. More than just fam. They look after each other in their small London flat, filled with the memories of their parents' Black Love. When that love is threatened, they have to find their way back to each other and to what it means to love whilst Black. Using real-life stories, imagined worlds and new songs inspired by an R&B heritage, they begin a journey to confronting their own worst fears. Chinonyerem Odimba's Black Love is an explosion of form-busting storytelling, an ode to Black music, and those real stories we rarely hear. It was premiered by Paines Plough on a UK tour in July 2021.

Chinonyerem Odimba is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: Black Love (Paines Plough, 2021); Unknown Rivers (Hampstead Theatre, 2019); Princess and the Hustler (Eclipse Theatre Company, Bristol Old Vic and Hull Truck Theatre co-production, 2019); Amongst the Reeds (Clean Break, Edinburgh Fringe and Yard Theatre, London, 2016); A Blues for Nia (Eclipse Theatre/BBC); His name is Ishmael (Bristol Old Vic, 2013); The Birdwoman of Lewisham (Arcola, 2015) and Joanne (Clean Break, Soho Theatre, 2015). She is a winner of the Channel 4 Playwrights' Scheme 2016 (formerly the Pearson Playwrights' Scheme). Her screenplay Scotch Bonnet was filmed by the BBC for The Break, a series of short films.