Welcome to the very first, COME THROUGH – a festival by artists for artists and audiences!
For the first time, Tamasha is showcasing ten brand new extracts (10-15 minutes each) created by members of their recent playwrights and directors programmes. The festival will take place over two weekends in Birmingham and London, comprising new writing, workshops, panel discussions and networking opportunities galore.
Tamasha’s Developing Artist Programme supports over 150 emerging and established theatre artists annually, nurturing voices from nearly every global majority community in the UK.
During their time on the programme, this year’s Tamasha Playwrights have worked with facilitators, Iman Qureshi and Satinder Chohan, to write ten brand new pieces that cover themes and genres from revenge to comedy, from spirituality to cancel culture and so much more…
Each script-in-hand performance will be directed by one of the Tamasha Directors, forming a very exciting collaboration, never before seen on stage – until now!
Alongside the opportunity to see tomorrow’s hit plays, the festival will also feature workshops by industry professionals, Q&A’s and networking sessions for aspiring and early career global majority artists.
Schedule for both days (subject to change)
| For Audiences & Artists | ||
| 7pm – 8.30pm | Come Through Showcase Five new play extracts from global majority writers each evening. Followed by a Post-Show Q&A with the writers, hosted by Tamasha’s producers.Plays on Sat 1918 Butterfly Lessons on how to communicate in the English language Somewhere in the near future No EscapePlays on Sun Manfred Fishbait The Clearance A glittering kind of grief The boys quarters Click here to find out more about the writer, director and description of each play. |
Book here |
| 8.40pm – 9.30pm | Meet the Team Join the Tamasha and Hippodrome teams, the playwrights and directors to find out more and make new connections. |
For showcase attendees, no booking required. |
| For Artists | ||
| 2pm – 5.30pm |  Free workshops for global majority artists led by Basheba ‘Bashiie’ Baptiste (she/her).Read Bashiie’s Full BioWorkshop 1: Theatre and the community Looking inwards and outwards this workshop looks at how we used our lived experience and the people around us to build characters and caricatures that inform the world around the play we are creating in a safe and trauma informed way. (This workshop is movement and performance based).Workshop 2: Sticking to your truth A workshop based on artistic integrity, and how you choose to present yourself to the world. This workshop is fun and holistic. Through a series of activities and games, we will work through discovering how we can be artistically focused without compromising our morals or feeling insignificant in the industry (with tips on networking and communicating with people we admire). |
Sign up by email to samia@tamasha.org.uk Age guideline: 16+ |
Price
Prices and discounts subject to changeAge guidance
14+ The show contains descriptions of sexual content, swearing, violence, horror, revenge.
Performances
CONCESSIONS
We offer a range of discounts and concessions to enable everyone to enjoy an affordable visit to Birmingham Hippodrome.
CLAIMANTS, UNDER 16s, OVER 65s, FULL TIME STUDENTS
£3 off standard price tickets in all seating areas
Limited availability
CONCESSIONS FOR PATRONS WITH DISABILITIES
£3 off standard price tickets in all seating areas
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Discounts and Concessions are offered subject to availability at the discretion of the Information and Sales Manager. Top three price bands only, unless otherwise stated. Restrictions may apply. Only one discount per ticket may apply, unless otherwise stated. Offers are non retrospective and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Valid ID must be presented where applicable. Additional discounts may be offered from time to time.
Manfred
By Zain Dada. Directed by Prashant Tailor
Kareem is 40, in debt and his dead parents’ cash & carry is on the line. Life is a mess. Will a Faustian pact with an old friend, Manfred, save his soul?
A Glittering Kind of Grief
By Gayathiri Kamalakanthan. Directed by Adrian David Paul
A Tamil trans child at a funeral questions how we honour the dead and the living.
Somewhere in the Near Future
By Lekhani Chirwa. Directed by Melina Namdar
Sometime in the near future, after the most recent pandemic and cost of living crisis. Black, Brown and Minoritised key workers are on strike, and government and society as we knew it has crumbled.
1918
By JC Niala. Directed by Manisha Sondhi
There was a theatre of the First World War in East Africa. Not all soldiers died yet not all returned.
The Boys Quarters
By Louisa Hayford. Directed by Patrick Ellis
Butterfly
By Nicole Joseph. Directed by Amelia Thornber
Set in Northern England, two friends try to keep together over the course of their teens, adolescence and early adulthood, but relationship trauma threatens to pull them apart.
The Clearance
By Peyvand Sadeghian. Directed by Natalya Martin
Trudy finds herself reluctantly moving back into her childhood home with her mother, Ivy. It is a hoarded house full of Things (material), and…Things (left unsaid). With the help of a TV crew to clear the clutter, they find there are some Things that are harder to shift.
Lessons On How to Communicate in the English Language
By Phoebe McIntosh. Directed by Kirk-Ann Roberts
Three decades after the revolution promised a new Romania, two young women – one English, one Romanian – must learn how to exist there, how to speak each other’s languages and how to break free of the expectations of the men in their lives and find their own paths.
Fishbait
By Vivian Xie. Directed by Simonne Mason
When Anya inadvertently gets roped into her ex-girlfriend’s all-female Beijing opera, the group confronts their desire (or their need?) to perform their descent into both a figurative and literal hell for an audience, while trying to sustain the tenuous notes defining (or destroying) their relationships.
No Escape
By Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Directed by Harris Albar
A group of friends grapple with loyalty in the age of social media after one of them finds themselves cancelled online…