Setting the Stage for Intimacy with Ita O’Brien

Pioneering Intimacy Coordinator Ita O’Brien has managed the portrayal of love and sex scenes in groundbreaking television and stage for more than 40 years, including on Sex Education, Dangerous Liasons, It’s A Sin, Conversations with Friends and many others.

She’s set the gold standard with her on-set intimacy guidelines, and changed the portrayal of sex in popular-culture; increasing authenticity and reducing stereotypes. Now she’ll share behind the scenes stories, and use lessons from her work to explore how we can all improve intimacy and connection in our own lives.

Ita will explain how she helps actors create authentic sex scenes, and share how we can use these techniques to create greater connection in our own relationships, and improve society as a whole.

Don’t miss this fascinating event!

Age Guidance: 16+

Tickets: £10

Ita O'Brien

Ita O’Brien is one of the world’s leading Intimacy Coordinators for film, TV and theatre and the creator of the Intimacy On Set guidelines, which are now used around the world, and have gained adoption in leading production houses including HBO, Netflix and the BBC.

Ita, whose career spans over 40 years, has worked on a huge number of productions, including:

• Normal People

• Conversations with Friends

• I May Destroy You

• It’s A Sin

• We Live in Time

• Sex Education

• Dangerous Liaisons

• Lady Chatterley’s Lover

• Empire of Light

• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

• The Outrun

• …and many others.

In the live performance space, Ita has worked on productions such as Manor & The Crucible (National Theatre), Spring Awakening (Almeida Theatre), Antony and Cleopatra (Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona) Pelléas et Mélisande (Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence). The first time the Royal Opera House London worked with an Intimacy Coordinator was in 2021 with Ita O’Brien on the Opera Company’s production of Theodora, (Royal Opera House & Teatro Real, Madrid), starring Julia Bullock.

Following this, they championed implementing the Intimacy On Set Guidelines as standard. As a result of Ita’s work, she has been widely covered in the national and international media as the leading spokesperson in this space. She was personally thanked in Michaela Coel’s BAFTA speech for I May Destroy You, and has been interviewed or profiled by Vogue, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Guardian, The Times, Elle, Entertainment Weekly and many other publications, as well as appearing on numerous broadcast shows and podcasts.