Leeds Arts Centre opens its 2026/27 season next month with She Kills Monsters, running at the Carriageworks Theatre, Millennium Square, from 14 to 17 October, tickets from £15.
Set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, the play follows Agnes and Chuck as they play through a campaign left behind by Agnes’s late sister Tilly, with everything on stage built as an oversized version of the game’s miniature figures or Tilly’s own drawings — no small task given the company’s compact 6x3m performance space. Over three days, a team the company calls the “Monster Squad” — a dozen members with varying artistic experience, led by Monster Design lead Jack Pickup — built ten monsters from sheets of A1 cardboard and a considerable amount of paint, ranging from a 3ft Kobold Jester to a 6x12ft dragon complete with a working head.
Jack had free creative rein over most designs, barring a handful of story-essential monsters including the dragon Tiamat and the Goblinoid Bugbears, and drew on knowledge of roughly 600 possible D&D monsters to pick ones fans would recognise, going for a rough, punky look with clear, distinctive silhouettes so each monster would register with audiences even in its brief time on stage. Pencils, acrylics and black markers were the Monster Squad’s main tools, with the approach kept simple enough that no prior painting experience was needed. With only three weeks to design everything — which he called the hardest part of the process — Jack still found room for personal touches, including hidden references to Iron Maiden album covers, maps and anime.
She Kills Monsters plays 14 to 17 October at the Carriageworks Theatre, Millennium Square; tickets start at £15.
