Talawa Theatre Company

Mission

The company's mission is to provide opportunities for black directors, writers and actors, to use black culture to enrich British theatre, and to enlarge theatre audiences seeing black work. Talawa's work embraces both literary and participation activities, finding and developing new writers and scripts, and developing theatre-makers and directors, alongside workshops for schools, colleges and corporate clients and presenting new work by emerging artists.

Jamaican-born Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Munroe and Inigo Espejel founded the company in 1986. Talawa's first production in 1986 was The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James, a play that had not been performed in England for 50 years, and never before with an all-black cast.

Talawa has produced and toured classic work by numerous playwrights and writers including Dennis Scott, Derek Walcott, Galt McDermot, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Michael Abbensetts, Trevor Rhone, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Tariq Ali and Arthur Miller and worked with a variety of directors and actors including Michaela Coel, Cathy Tyson, Dona Croll, Ray Shell, Norman Beaton, Horace Ove, Paulette Randall, Don Warrington, Fraser Ayres and David Harewood.

Previous artistic directors have included Yvonne Brewster, Ben Thomas, Paulette Randall, Bonnie Greer and Patricia Cumper.

History

Jamaican-born Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Munroe and Inigo Espejel founded the company in 1986. Talawa's first production in 1986 was The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James, a play that had not been performed in England for 50 years, and never before with an all-black cast.

Talawa has produced and toured classic work by numerous playwrights and writers including Dennis Scott, Derek Walcott, Galt McDermot, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Michael Abbensetts, Trevor Rhone, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Tariq Ali and Arthur Miller and worked with a variety of directors and actors including Michaela Coel, Cathy Tyson, Dona Croll, Ray Shell, Norman Beaton, Horace Ove, Paulette Randall, Don Warrington, Fraser Ayres and David Harewood.

Previous artistic directors have included Yvonne Brewster, Ben Thomas, Paulette Randall, Bonnie Greer and Patricia Cumper.

Today and Recent Productions

Talawa Theatre Company's artistic director is Michael Buffong.

Talawa Theatre Company produces a major touring production annually.

Moon On A Rainbow Shawl

The 2013/14 production was a revival of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John, directed by Michael Buffong and which toured across the UK, in addition to playing at the Royal National Theatre. Critics described "this production is an absolute must-see" "a well-crafted slow burner" and "treats the characters as real people rather than outrageous exotics ... Justice, you feel, has at last been done ..."

All My Sons

Talawa Theatre Company toured a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons in Spring 2015.

Critics described the production as "heart wrenching" and "Talawa’s contribution to the Arthur Miller centenary ... is a worthwhile one" which "ratchets up the tension"

King Lear

In October 2015, Talawa announced a new production of William Shakespeare's King Lear starring Don Warrington in the title role. King Lear was co-produced with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Reviews singled out the production as being "as close to definitive as can be", "a significant production" and "outstanding". Don Warrington's performance as King Lear was described as "a heartbreaking tour de force".

In late June 2016, Talawa Theatre Company announced the film of King Lear, in a collaboration with the Royal Exchange Theatre and funded by the digital commissioning body The Space, the film was available to view on-demand and free of charge on BBC iPlayer and the British Council's websites for three months in summer 2016, ahead of a cinema release in September and October 2016, and closed 2016 by being screened on BBC4 on Christmas Day.

Girls

Also in 2016, Talawa also co-produced the award-winning play by Theresa Ikoko, Girls, the story of three young women kidnapped by extremists.

The Times referred to Girls as “Scorchingly intelligent and as powerful as a gut punch” while Time Out called it " ... clever, audacious, entertaining and full of promise."

Theresa Ikoko commented on her experience of working with Talawa to get the story produced, saying: "This isn’t the first play I’ve written, but it’s my first produced play. The first play I wrote, I didn’t really know it was a play, it was just for me. I would read it over the phone to my friend and when I’d finished he said I had to show it to someone. Talawa Theatre Company found me and [artistic director] Michael Buffong put that play in a Talawa Firsts show, and I got signed by my agent there ... Talawa completely took a chance on me. I had no training or experience or credentials, and there was no one to offer a reference. But Michael believed in me. It took me forever though, probably until the opening night of Girls at HighTide, for me to believe him."

Awards

In autumn 2016, the Arts Council England announced that it had awarded £478,671 to a partnership between Talawa Theatre Company and Birmingham Repertory Theatre to boost the visibility and profile of established and emerging Black and Minority Ethnic talent with a three month West End Theatre season with a wrap around festival of new work.

A further award of more than £400,000 was awarded to a consortium led by Tiata Fahodzi, of which Talawa Theatre Company is a part, to support the development of established and emerging BAME theatre makers and to increase their representation across the wider theatre sector.

Artist Development

As well as touring major works across the UK, Talawa Theatre Company commissions new plays, develops artists and directors.

In January 2017 Talawa announced the creation of MAKE, a career development community of Black theatre artists. Called MAKE, the new career development community creates 250 new opportunities for Black artists every year, across four areas, enabling artists to make connections and build the support they need to create new work. A Talawa spokesperson commented that "Diversity projects tend to be just that – projects – and as a quick-fix approach, they are not building an infrastructure. What we need is sustained engagement that provides artists with a pathway into the industry, and the footholds to keep them there ...".

Talawa also offers a script reading service and produces an annual season of play readings, Talawa Firsts, which showcases the best new black writing talent. The Company also supports and develops emerging theatre-makers – performers, designers and technicians – through their flagship participation programme TYPT and Talawa Firsts.