On June 12 this year, 49 people were killed and 53 were wounded in a terrorist attack and hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the United States.

The shooting shocked the world, as it was both the deadliest case of violence against LGBT people in United States history and also the biggest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

This Monday, Chaskis Theatre Company is presenting After Orlando at Park Theatre to mark the six month anniversary of the shooting. The show has been written as a response to the Florida attack and is comprised of more than seventy short pieces specifically curated by emerging and established international voices in theatre, including Neil Labute, Winter Miller and Anders Lustgarten.

Actress Maddy Hill, who is best known for her role as Nancy Carter in the long-running BBC soap EastEnders, will be performing a monologue called The Healing Power Of Bright Colours, which explores the role that masculinity plays in terrorism.

The 26-year-old, who has lived in Hackney her whole life and graduated with a B.A. in Acting at Rose Bruford College in 2011, explains why she wanted to get involved…

She says: “Hate crime against the LGBT community is such a huge issue that needs to be discussed and as the play will take place on the six month anniversary, it seems even more poignant.

“I’ve known about the Chaskis Theatre Company for a while, after they worked with my friend from drama school just before I started EastEnders. Now that I am out of the show, I feel very lucky to have been able to get involved in what they are doing. It has been a varied year and this is a lovely way to finish it off.”

Maddy believes the theatre is a strong platform to bring together previously unheard voices to share their grief, anger and hope, whilst also raising awareness about issues surrounding hate crimes.

She explains: “The show is a series of short plays that were all written in response to the Orlando shooting. We are putting on 20 readings that are all under 10 minutes in length and I’ll be involved in a play called Matted, which follows a drag queen during her last moments in the night club when the shooting took place.

“At the end, we are all doing a poem together called After and then I might be doing a song, but we shall see, as it depends on whether my voice is able to hit all the notes.”

After Orlando is certainly giving Maddy a chance to showcase her multiple talents on stage, after playing the same role in EastEnders for three years.

She is the first in her family to act, although she admits her Dad is quite eccentric and always felt like an undiscovered, frustrated actor, as he had all the markings to be one but instead worked in construction.

Acting has been a passion for her since childhood and she spent her weekends as a teenager at The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, in the Golden Lane Estate, before landing the chance to work alongside actor Danny Dyer.

She jokes: “Oh, funnily enough, everyone asks me about Danny Dyer and it has got to the point where I just tell people he is great. He is great- there you go.

“Who knows whether I will return one day to EastEnders and I’m not hoping to get back at the moment, as there is just so much I want to pursue.

“Being on stage and being on television are very different things, the stage is way more immediate but it also depends on the writing, it doesn’t really matter the medium at the end of the day, as long as the writing is good. There are so many factors that make a good play.

“Even though I’m busy at the moment, I do have big plans to go on holiday after Christmas and leave the politics of 2016 behind.”

After Orlando, Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, N4 3JP, Monday, December 12, 7.30pm, details: parktheatre.co.uk