Click on the buttons below to find out more about individual Narratives of Empathy and Resilience shows.

10-In-The-Bed, for ages 3-7

Angel, for advisory ages 7+

The Bench, for advisory ages 8+

Boys Will Be Boys, for advisory ages 9+

Daytime Deewane, for advisory ages 12+

Flat Lands, for advisory ages 13+

Hot Orange, for advisory ages 13+

Loop.In.Doors, for advisory ages 13+

Psychic Babies, for ages 1-3

for ages 3-7

Powerfully moving and playful at the same time, 10-In-The-Bed features four characters who each in turn are threatened with being kicked out of the ‘too-small’ bed, but who are saved when their unique quality is identified, and with the realisation that their loss would be detrimental to everyone’s well-being and safety. There are sharks, pirates and funny fishes with flappy fins; there are damp walls, a dripping tap and the institutional voice beyond the door telling them to ‘be quiet’. 10-In-The-Bed explores urban deprivation, with the imaginative play that children enact serving as a metaphor for games that serve as a route of escape from their harsh reality of poverty.

10-In-The-Bed was commissioned by Half Moon as Ten in the Bed. The show is in development and will be touring the UK in 2024.

Cast
Naz and Pringle – Kenneth Omole
Iggy – John Omole

Featuring the voice of Androulla Constantinou as Woman

Creative Team
Writer – Steve Tasane
Composer and Sound Designer – James Perry
Assistant Director – Stephen Bailey
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy And Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Script Dramaturge – David Lane
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

for advisory ages 7+

Food is Angel’s place for adventure and imagination: she loves pigs in blankets at Christmas, and the all-day buffet on holiday in Spain is a place of fascination and experimentation. As those around her start to comment on the size of the portions on her plate and a healthy eating regime at school mean she can’t eat what she wants anymore, she starts to ask questions. Angel explores young people’s relationship with food and diet cultures, seeking to challenge societal expectations, stigmas and negative stereotypes surrounding female body image.

Cast
Angel – Jade Dowsett-Roberts

Creative Team
Writer – Farah Najib
Composer and Sound Designer – James Perry
Assistant Director – Rori Endersby
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Script Dramaturge – David Lane
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

for advisory ages 8+

Gentle, reflective and powerfully understated, The Bench explores the importance and beauty of inter-generational friendships, when two different generations unpack their feelings and stories and find a metaphysical connection through the act of building a simple park bench. With child-like visuals and a soundtrack rooted in the world of traditional Armenian music, The Bench uses the story of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the death marches into the Syrian Desert inflicted upon ethnic Armenians by the then Ottoman Empire. The piece depicts a powerful exploration of inherited trauma and resonates with contemporary forced migration.

The Bench has been commissioned by Half Moon and is being radically reinvented as a piece for 13+, exploring the same themes surrounding the Armenian genocide and generational trauma for a teenage audience. The show will tour in 2025.

Cast
Andranik – Michael Irving
Jack – Peter Losasso

Featuring the voices of:
Androulla Constantinou as Woman
Geoff Arthur as Jack’s Father

Creative Team
Writer – Joe Nerssessian
Composer and Sound Designer – James Perry
Co-Director – Stephen Bailey
Co-Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Script Dramaturge – David Lane
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

Thanks to: Jack, Ben and Alfie Banks for the illustrations that featured in the piece; the late Khatchatur Pilikian for sharing his life stories with the writer; the late Nerses Nerssessian, the writer’s Grandfather who survived the 1915 Armenian genocide for sharing this story.

for advisory ages 9+

Boys Will Be Boys explores how and why young men can, from an early age, be subjected to toxic masculine experiences that can have negative impact upon their own development and the lived experiences of others, especially women. Boys Will Be Boys challenges the young audience to unpack the origins of adult gender violence from seemingly harmless playground games, peer pressure and influential societal role models, especially among family members. Using poetry and exquisitely beautiful storytelling, the piece leaves the audience asking questions about how their own behaviours and interactions can have huge impact upon others.

Boys Will Be Boys underwent development in early 2022 through workshops with KS3 school groups in St Helens, in partnership with WonderArts. Both Half Moon and WonderArts are seeking appropriate pathways to fund a full commission and tour of this peice.

Cast and Creative Team
Performer and Writer – Zohab Zee Khan
Composer and Sound Designer – James Perry
Assistant Director – Rori Endersby
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Trainee Dramaturge (Spoken Word) – Lori Zakariyya King
Project Dramaturge (Spoken Word) and Dramaturgical Trainer – Rosemary Harris
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

for advisory ages 12+

Daytime Deewane explores the beauty and struggle of living with a multi-faceted, multi-cultural identity as a 15-year-old teenage boy in 1990s Britain. Puberty, inter-generational conflict, and spirituality are explored through a British Muslim Pakistani lens, observing how a young man who occupies many spaces searches for harmony. Inspired by the daytime raves of 1990s British Asian culture and using poetry framed within a live DJ soundtrack, the piece joyfully celebrates a generation who carved out space for a ‘British Asian’ sub-culture. 30 years on in 2021, Daytime Deewane brings audiences insightful contemporary resonances to explore.

Daytime Deewane was commissioned by Half Moon and became a 60 minute show for ages 13+ and adult audiences, completing a tour of UK venues in October 2022. Daytime Deewane writer, Azan Ahmed, won the Off West End Offies Award for Writing for Theatre for Young Audiences. The show was nominated for two more Offies (Performance: Ryan Rajan Mal and Omi Mantri, and Original Music/Sound: SOMATIC). In January 2023 Daytime Deewane was also nominated in the Everything Theatre Fringe Theatre Awards, or Etties for short, for Best Theatre for Young Audiences.

Cast
Farhan – Jonny Khan

Featuring the voices of:
Azan Ahmed as MC A-Jazz and Farhan’s Baba
Esther Rennae Walker as Girl

Creative Team
Writer – Azan Ahmed
DJ on stage/Sound Designer – Jake Walker
Assistant Director – Stephen Bailey
Movement – Hamza Ali
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy And Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Trainee Dramaturge (spoken word) – Lori Zakariyya King
Project Dramaturge (spoken word) / Dramaturgical Trainer – Rosemary Harris
Camera Operator And Film Editor – Ella Bennett

Thanks to: Oneil Ahmed, the writer’s Baba

For advisory ages 13+ and young adults.

Flat Lands is a multi-media spoken word show about friendship, risk taking and BMX bikes, told from the perspective of an older, benevolent but often socially invisible housing estate street cleaner. 11-year-old Leo has been kicked out of school and spends his days on his bike, showing off to the older teenagers on the estate and causing trouble where he can. In Jay and Rico, who are struggling themselves to navigate the demands of day-to-day existence, Leo finds two role models and a chance to make choices of his own. Flat Lands aims to explore the context of tender male friendships and communal responsibility. The piece highlights the resilience, joy and beauty of communities who are often overlooked in theatre-making.

Flat Lands was commissioned as a full length play by Filament in South Devon. Now called DIRT, the show is being developed to be staged in October 2023.

Cast and Creative Team
Performer and Writer – Tom Stockley

Featuring the voices of:
Sonny Bunker of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Jay
Brodie Bunker of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Rico
Freddy Wadsworth of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Leo
Androulla Constantinou as Leo’s Mum

Sound and Video Designer – Jake Walker
Assistant Director – Stephen Bailey

Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Trainee Dramaturge (spoken word) – Lori Zakariyya King
Project Dramaturge (spoken word) / Dramaturgical Trainer – Rosemary Harris
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

Thanks to: Young Bristol and the young people of the BS14 Club

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

Hot Orange is an exploration of friendship, reconstructed memories and the liberating power of playtime imagination, as two teenage girls from very different worlds, meet again after 8 years. Set in their childhood playground basketball court, Hot Orange interrogates childhood intimacy and the moment when you fall in love: feelings that are shattered by the darker reactions of others. Using spoken word, framed within an evocative soundscape, the piece presents audiences with a powerful and honest contemporary narrative of queer love in childhood.

Hot Orange was commissioned by Half Moon and will be touring the UK in November 2023 in an immersive format style.

Cast
Amina – Amal Khalidi
Tandeki – Tatenda Naomi Matsvai

Creative Team
Writers – Amal Khalidi and Tatenda Naomi Matsvai
Additional text – Rori Endersby
Stage, Projection and Costume Designer – Roisin Martindale
Composer and Sound Designer – Adam Paroussos
Co-Director – Rori Endersby
Co-Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Project Dramaturge (spoken word) – Rosemary Harris
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

Thanks to: the young people who use the basketball court on the Roupell Park Estate, SW2

for advisory 13+ and young adults

Loop.In.Doors explores social anxiety as an experience common to both transgender and cisgender people. It uses the everyday experience of getting ready to leave the house to look at how people are judged in public, and the impact of social norms on our well-being. Framed within a live DJ soundtrack and using spoken word, Loop.In.Doors is an evocative and beautifully crafted piece, which challenges form through exploring the sound and musicality of language and finding new phrasing and physical interpretation. At its heart, it asks to consider that everyone has something to gain from trans liberation.

The piece is being developed by the artist independently of Half Moon.

Cast and Creative Team
Performer and Writer – Tomara Garrod
DJ on stage, Sound and Video Designer – Jake Walker
Assistant Director – Stephen Bailey
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

for ages 1-3

Psychic Babies explores rites of passage, rituals, the wisdom we are born with, carry with us, have adopted from ancestors we have never met and the legacy we in turn leave behind. With pulsating sound presented live on stage by a DJ artist, framed within evocative visuals, this theatrical and visceral performance uses semi-improvised movement and limited language to challenge audiences about stereotypes of beauty and motherhood in work for the very young. Psychic Babies was initially inspired by those older homeless women who sleep on the streets in urban environments.

Cast And Creative Team
Performer and Writer – Tracy Bickley
DJ on stage, Sound and Video Designer – Jake Walker
Assistant Director – Stephen Bailey
Director – Chris Elwell
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager – Samuel Baker
Technical Stage Manager – Callum Thomson
Hair, Makeup and Character Development – Darren Evans (darrenevans.com)
Trainee TYA Producer (Empathy and Resilience) – Esther Rennae Walker
Script Dramaturge – David Lane
Camera Operator and Film Editor – Ella Bennett

Thanks to: Hugo Bickley

Performance Sharing Day

On the 22 July 2021, due to COVID restrictions, our planned ‘in-person’ showcase aimed at the theatre industry was postponed, and instead we showcased the nine powerful R and D performances of different genres and different target audiences among the artists and Half Moon team instead.

Each performance was followed with a panel discussion with the artists about their pieces as well as their creative development throughout the programme.

The performance day opened up exciting potential, not only for the artists. Though we were unable to welcome delegates in-person, the showcase was professionally filmed.

The programme culminated in September when our friends in the theatre sector were invited to a 2-day digital event, where we shared the R and D performances.

On the 23 and 24 September 2021, we presented our Narratives of Empathy and Resilience showcase on zoom to our friends in the TYA sector. This featured the filmed performances alongside Q&As. Each film was concluded with a provocation session, where the artists and delegates debated the issues raised by the pieces.

SESSION 1 – 23 September 2021 (10.30am-12.30pm)

Daytime Deewane
Provocation: Is there a need for ‘joyful’ narratives of British Asian experiences in TYA?

Flat Lands
Provocation: Is there a danger of demonisation in narratives presented about socio-economically disadvantaged communities in TYA?

SESSION 2 – 23 September 20-21 (2pm-4pm)

Hot Orange
Provocation: Are narratives of queer love in childhood neglected in TYA?

Loop.In.Doors
Provocation: Can challenging form and language allow narratives of social dysphoric experiences to be presented with authenticity in TYA?

SESSION 3 – 24 September 2021 (10.30am-12.30pm)

Psychic Babies
Provocation: Does work for the very young in TYA pander to stereotypes about beauty and motherhood?

10-In-The-Bed
Provocation: How young can an audience be if artists explore social deprivation and poverty through their art making?

SESSION 4 – 24 September 2021 (2pm-4pm)

Boys Will Be Boys and Angel
Provocation: Are ‘tell it as it is’ narratives the most effective way to explore issue-based themes in TYA?

The Bench
Provocation: Is there value in using historical trauma-based testimony and narratives to address contemporary stories in TYA?

Azan Ahmed is a London based actor and poet. As a poet, he has been commissioned by the O.N.S, was a finalist of the 2020 Roundhouse Poetry Slam and was part of Apples and Snakes’ 2021 Writing Room cohort. His work currently explores navigating British Muslim masculinity and is interested in making inter-disciplinary work – mixing poetry with theatre, music and film.

Acting credits include: Name Place Animal Thing (Almeida Theatre); Superhoe (BBC); Hope Street (BBC); Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)

Instagram: @azanahmed_
Twitter: @azanahmed_

Rori Endersby is a queer theatre maker with a background in stage management. They have worked with Half Moon on multiple previous projects, most recently The Catastrophic Adventures of Dollop and Crinkle. They have a particular interest in theatre exploring underrepresented groups and communities and have worked on multiple LGBT productions including the UK tour of Rotterdam by Jon Brittain. One of their first forays into directing was 1984 which was nominated for 5 Daily Echo Curtain Call awards including best director.

Twitter and Instagram: @roriendersby

Roisin Martindale began her creative career studying Fine Art at Goldsmiths University, London, going on to explore various professional roles including visual marketing and event design. In 2018, Rosin undertook a Masters degree in Performance Design at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Her experiences living and working in London as a queer woman, and her involvement in the Ritzy Living Wage Campaign from 2013-2017 have shaped her perspective as a designer and theatre-maker.

Website: www.roisinmartindale.co.uk
Instagram: @roisin.sarah

Farah Najib is an emerging writer and facilitator based in London. She is driven by the potential that theatre has to be a powerful form of communication and change, and is passionate about creating daring, female-led stories. She trained in Applied Theatre and Writing for Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has since been part of writers’ groups at the Royal Court and Soho theatres. In 2020 she completed work on her first commission, a monologue project with Theatre of Debate and University College London exploring the ethics of artificial intelligence. Farah also works with young people, encouraging them to explore their creativity through drama and playwriting.

Instagram: @farah_najib
Twitter: @ohheyfarah

Adam Paroussos is a composer, sound designer and performance artist whose work has spanned internationally through film, dance, theatre and live art. Collaboration is at the root of his practice and often works with Andrea Zimmerman, Sound Writing Kollab and Petri Delights. Adam’s work incorporates music and sounds composed from natural materials, field recordings, found objects, electronics, trumpet and self-made instruments.

Website: www.adamparoussos.wixsite.com/adamparoussos
Instagram: @bamboo_mustard
Soundcloud: bamboo-mustard

James Perry is an award-winning composer from London. He began his career as a music director in church, where he played at numerous events in front of thousands of people – including the Gaumont State Theatre. James specialises in a wide range of musical mediums: live performances, music production, podcasts, game, TV and Film. He entered the world of music composition in 2012, by 2013 he had scored his first short film, Squeeze, a sold-out premiere which was met with positive reviews and since then has gone on to score many more projects.

Instagram: @jperrycomposer

Stephen Bailey is a director and theatre maker with a background focused on disability work and new writing. He trained at LAMDA and have since worked for Graeae Theatre Company, the National Theatre, Royal Court, Hampstead Theatre, Finborough Theatre and Weores Sandor Szinhaz.

Twitter: @directorsajb
Website: www.directorsajb.co.uk

Tracy Bickley is a writer, director and artists who has been involved in the performing arts most of her life and graduating from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in 1991. Having had experience of devising, directing and acting, it was through making art in a therapeutic setting that led her to making a deeper connection to writing and storytelling. She chooses to celebrate those voices, often through fictional characters, placing them in different time zones, cultures and genders.

Instagram: @ms_bickley
Twitter: @tracybickley1

Tomara Garrod is a poet, producer and facilitator, fascinated with the sensuality of words – their sights, sounds and textures. Tomara’s curiosity has guided them through music, theatre and fine art with a thirst for experimentation deeply rooted in a joy for collaboration. They are particularly interested in using language to playfully queer traditional identity categories and involving audiences in this process. They are a Promundo Writing Fellow and in 2020 received an Off West-End award for their co-written play, Crowded.

Instagram: @tomtheythem
Twitter: @tomtheythem
Website: www.tomaragarrod.com

Amal Khalidi is a multi-disciplinary theatre maker, born and raised in London. She has also indulged in drag king performance, music production, poetry, writing and directing for the stage, whilst also working with members of her local community as a drama facilitator. Her most recent work is a project in collaboration with The Albany Theatre’s Open Source Collaborations, A Long Journey Ahead.

Instagram: @amalkhalidi_
Twitter: @amal_khalidi

Tatenda Naomi Matsvai is a facilitator and devising performance maker, working with spoken word poetry. Tatenda’s work is mainly bio-mythical, infusing her lived experience with myth, to challenge the binaries of identity and reality as an act of self-recovery. Their performances are joyful, participatory, and multi-dimensional. Recent work has been performed as part of Peckham Previews (Theatre Peckham), Words First (Roundhouse) and at the Between Pomiędzy Literary Festival (Poland). In mid-November, their latest project, transit, will be performed in London.

Instagram: @tatendax
Twitter: @MyNamesTATENDA
Soundcloud: poems2tender

Joe Nerssessian is an Armenian-based freelance journalist who has covered everything from red carpets in Paris to riots in London. A former Press Association reporter in the UK, he is largely interested in the personal stories that we are all made up of, playing with memory and our storied lives as transitions into writing for stage.

Instagram: @joenerssessian
Twitter: @joenerssessian
Website: www.joenerssessian.contently.com

Zohab Zee Khan is a performance poet, motivational speaker, and certified Life Coach. Zohab has conducted over a thousand poetry and self-development workshops across the globe. In 2014, he was crowned the National Poetry Slam Champion of Australia and co-founded The Pakistan Poetry Slam in 2015. His first poetry collection I Write reached best seller status in Australia within months of its release. Zohab has performed his poetry at some of the world’s premier writers’ festivals. As a 4th generation Australian of Pakistani heritage, Zohab has channeled his distinct life experiences into stories with the intent to educate.

Instagram: @zeemoneysupercool
Twitter: @zohabzee
Website: www.zohabzee.com

Tom Stockley is a queer artist, writer, performer and community worker from Bristol. Informed by a century of counter-culture, their practice is parasitic and explores humour, beauty and sadness of everyday life including spoken word, DIY spaces and collaborative projects. Their practice exists where these roles intersect, in the spaces where spoken word, text, visual art and performance meet and allows them to facilitate conversations and collaborations between themself and the communities around them. My practice is modelled on social work, theatre, live art, digital production and collage – using elements of all of these but arriving at a place that can’t be defined as any one particular discipline. They are a performer in DIY Punk scenes, queer events and community theatre and have been performing and writing as punk poet and performance artist T.S. IDIOT.

Instagram: @tstheidiot
Twitter: @tstheidiot
Facebook: @tstheidiot
Website: www.tomstockley.weebly.com

Steve Tasane is a children’s poet, a human rights poet, performance poet, and children’s novelist. His latest novel, Child I, won the Leeds Book Award and Alexandra Palace Children’s Book Award and is published in 11 languages. Steve has performed/read at Glastonbury, Edinburgh, Hay and Latitude Festivals, as well as at Hamleys Toy Shop, Battersea Dogs Home, and the House of Commons.

Instagram: @SteveTasane
Twitter: @SteveTasane
Facebook: SteveTasane
Website: stevetasane.wordpress.com

Lori Zakariyya King is an experienced performance poet from Richmond. He’s currently producing for the television and stage, primarily in the children’s sphere. He’s a BBC Writersroom alumni. His themes are nostalgia, parental alienation and unconventional depictions of Muslim lives

Instagram: @2kthepoet

Jake Walker is a multidisciplinary artist and DJ working primarily with video, drawing, dance and sound. Jake has shown dance video works at The Harris Museum in Preston, and at Dance4 in Nottingham for the UK Young Artists festival in 2019. Alongside showing works in gallery spaces, Jake regularly shows video works at night clubs and raves across London, these video works would be projected behind the DJ booth or shown in the side spaces of clubs, this was a chance for Jake to put artworks into traditionally non-art spaces and show the works to audiences who might never go to a gallery space. As a DJ Jake collects a wide range of electronic music from techno and trance, through the spectrum of UK bass music, to ambient and experimental. Jake is a resident DJ on Kindred Radio where he plays a monthly show. Jake has released music under his z0it alias on labels such as Quantum Natives and Crystal Mine Music in Spain; z0it is an alias geared towards experimental sounds and conceptual ideas around dance and choreography. During his recent studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, Jake curated a night titled Relationships With Sound.

Instagram: @jakes_things
Website: www.jakewalker.art
Soundcloud: Jakes_things

Esther Rennae Walker is a storyteller and emerging creative producer from London, committed to exposing the unheard stories that sweep the streets of London and beyond. During her training at Loughborough University for a B.A. (Hons) in Drama with English, Esther Rennae began her creative journey through filmmaking and writing for screen, inspired to create stories where she could see herself and her community honestly and imaginatively represented. Her latest micro-short, 56 Black Men (2020) was selected for Wha’Gwan film festival (2021) which earned her a feature in the Evening Standard. Her latest work for stage, Places of Me, a tenderly written poem to her birth home, Lewisham, was produced at Theatre Peckham’s Tongue-Tied Festival (2021) under the Final Drafts programme. The Narratives of Empathy and Resilience programme (2021) is her first credit as a producer in theatre.

Instagram: @estherennae
Twitter: @estherrennae
Website: https://estherrennaewalker.wixsite.com/website

We charted the exciting Narratives of Empathy and Resilience journey with some behind the scenes content of our artists’ creative journey, including a series of blogs, photos and videos.

BLOG 1: Getting started

BLOG 2: Meet the artists

BLOG 3: Meet the artists, part 2

BLOG 4: What we’ve got up to so far

BLOG 5: Rehearsal photos

BLOG 6: Empathy and resilience showcase 2021

BLOG 7: The Finale

Reflection from the artists about the programme

“Empathy and Resilience offers an unusual opportunity for a designer: to shape the heart of the stories being told, to be directly involved in the voice of a piece, whilst working with other theatre-makers whose work and ideas excite me. It is sometimes difficult for designers to get access to this part of the process which can mean missing exciting opportunities, and I wanted to work in a way that gives everyone chance to contribute in new or unexpected ways in the creative space….”

“I was interested in the process of developing music for a children’s show and understanding how this differs to theatre made for all ages. I also wanted to be part of making a piece that would hopefully inspire young people to find their voice and help them with understanding their own feelings and relationships”

“As my practice drifts towards theatre and larger scale performance pieces, I want to capture the communities and individual experiences of the people I work with. As someone who grew up on the edge of a council estate to a working class family, I am constantly searching for examples of resilience, joy and beauty in communities that are often overlooked. One of the places I’ve found this is the Flat lands – places where young people bring their BMX bikes to form communities and practice their art”

“The programme supported me greatly with realistic deadlines, brilliant dramaturgical support and excellent provocations within the room. As my piece was specific to my heritage, the team did not at any point try to dilute or take away from the richness of this aspect in the piece, but focused on sharpening and elevating what was already there through eagle-eyed provocations and consistently asking ‘what are you trying to convey here?’. This kept me rooted in the urgency and essence of the story. Furthermore, the dramaturgical support made me feel like I wasn’t going at it alone and provided me with a sounding board to bounce ideas off while also receiving new approaches to the work. The support was almost surgical, some moments were spent focusing in on how the language and text can shape the story and other times were about working out which sections were needed where dramatically”

“I have developed in my practice as an artist by not being held down by imposter syndrome. The programme has helped me developed my own creative process by looking at different stimuli and putting it to action by doing it. Coming from a Muslim background there is often a neglect in narrative surrounding queer love and I wanted to incorporate those voices and experiences into a performance. So we aimed on focusing on a joyful telling of queer love in childhood, particularly through the perspective of POC and that is where the core of our performance bloomed”

“I have learnt about making work in a theatre setting and I have learnt new things to consider when making work for young audiences. I’ve become confident in working on projects with multiple collaborators, especially way to problem solve creative ideas through multiple workshops. I’ve learnt about professional practice and how to operate as a freelancer in the industry”

“The programme has pushed me in a new direction of the stories I want to tell and in how I write them. I’ve always been a collaborator and finding actors, directors, composers, to interpret my writing has shown me the potential of theatre and theatre for young audiences. The programme made feel part of a community by giving me permission to write a script and see it through to production which gave me confidence to feel like an artist, a creative, and thus the ability to network within this community”

“From start to finish, there has been encouragement to keep exploring, researching and not stop. I feel like this has been a chance to journey to the depths of inner stories, meet people and share them. Hope, bravery and finding your voice in adversity”

“The programme has helped me develop confidence in my craft and made me realise I am a director and not someone just pretending to be one….. Everybody on the programme was so brilliant and so generous. It felt incredibly good to bounce and share ideas with everyone. And it helped create a safe, welcoming and creative space to work”