For this showcase, each artist from New Earth Theatre Makers Academy Plus Birmingham will present an exciting short excerpt of their new work:

Untitled Work

By Altus Chan

A man living through life suddenly realises a timer is counting down above his head.

With no indication of what is going on, nor any acknowledgement of the timer from anyone else, the man is forced to confront this by himself.

Faced with the ominous timer counting down, not knowing what for and what happens when it finishes, the man tries to fight it, appeal to it, avoid it, all the while unknowingly reflecting on his life and confronting his inner hopes, dreams, and fears.

As the timer continues to tick down, and the world around him shrinks, the man is faced with a choice: give up and submit, or accept and live.

Fences

By Rena Fuad

‘Fences’ is a story about a longing for community, masked behind hate and racism, which sadly, is a common experience for a lot of us. When working on this story, I asked myself: why does this happen? Why would someone choose to hate? Racism is not innate; it’s a conscious choice. And with everything going on in the world right now, it often feels like a division between ‘us’ and ‘them’, the world tattooed with imaginary lines that we as a society have drawn: I am from here, you are from there; this is my side, that is yours. For my story, I decided to flip the narrative and explore it from the perspective of someone who chooses to be hateful—someone who is lonely and yearns to belong, but just doesn’t go about it the right way. I hope that ‘Fences’ can show that in order to build community, we have to open up our hearts and extend our hand, and be the change we want to see in the world.

Metamorphosis

By AJ De Vera

Maya’s Lolo (Grandpa) has passed away, and they have just attended his funeral. Maya is now thinking about what they haven’t done while their Lolo was alive. Something they regret is not appreciating their culture and the lessons their Lolo taught them and place it upon themself to make up for this as soon as possible before it’s too late. Explore Maya’s journey the year after their Lolo’s funeral, and the challenges they face.

Zizzi

By Hongwei Bao

When Tao visits Josh’s flat at night for their first date, he is to learn about art, beer and an invisible cat called Zizzi. A story about love, trust and a young man’s exploration of his sexuality and identity.

Stepmonster

By Shu-Wen Tung

This solo performance explores the complex realities of being a “childless” stepmother and shares the journey of wrestling with the feeling of being an outsider in one’s own family.

500 Years Later

By Safiyya Lea

All is not as it seems when a Kelantanese warrior queen, rogue agony aunt and reluctant legend is violently summoned out of time. She arrives armed, irritable and on the hunt. As time glitches and history misbehaves in a collision of Malay folk movement, nu-metal and lethal blows, her story begins to unravel and she is forced to confront a brutally edited wikipedia page of her life. A legend reduced to a paragraph. She’s been remembered through stories, song and dance for 500 years but this… This darkly comic solo performance confronts myth, collective memory, and what it means to be a legend.