I’m joined today by Yousef Sweid and Isabella Sedlak, the writer-performer and writer-director of Between the River and the Sea, currently playing in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Yousef is an actor and writer, Isabella is a writer and director; the two have been collaborating on Between the River and the Sea since 2024. The show premiered in 2025 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, then went on to the Edinburgh Fringe and the Segal Center in New York - now the show is here in London, at the Royal Court. Welcome, Yousef and Isabella - to the Royal Court and to the Royal Court Playwrights’ podcast.

Kimberly Belflower is a Tony-nominated playwright and educator from a two-stoplight town in rural Georgia, Appalachia.

I don’t think I’m alone in admitting that I have a mild obsession with Appalachia. Between the landscape, the legends, the people, and the region’s deep culture of storytelling, it has long been a hotbed for creativity. Great Appalachian writers include Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver, novelist Lee Smith, and poet Nikki Giovanni. The commonality in their work is generosity, intelligence, and an almost elemental force, exploring the region’s history, its communities, and its complicated relationship with industry.

Our guest today, Kimberly Belflower, emerges from that same rich tradition of storytelling.

Her plays include Lost Girl, Saint Pigtail, and John Proctor Is the Villain. Her work is known for its distinctive tonal balance of hilarity and gravitas, grappling with questions of gender, power, and change. She writes with remarkable attention to the interior lives of women and the social ecosystems that shape them, bringing great intelligence and emotional complexity to the stage...