To Jenny Sealey, Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” a play about a shipwrecked party marooned on strange shores, will ring true for anyone, anywhere, at any time.
“There’s always a storm about to happen in this world — whether it’s a war, COVID, an earthquake or whatever — ‘The Tempest’ will always be relevant,” says the director of “The Tempest: Swimming for Beginners,” speaking over Zoom from her home in London. After a year’s postponement due to the pandemic, the production opened June 1 at the Owlspot Theatre in Tokyo’s Toshima Ward.
Since 1997, Sealey has been the CEO and artistic director at Graeae, a theater company comprising deaf and disabled actors in London. In 2009, she was honored with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), but she is perhaps best known as the co-director of the London 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony along with public arts producer Bradley Hemmings.