Birmingham Hippodrome have partnered with New Earth Theatre for their Theatre Makers Academy Plus – Birmingham. A six-month part time course for Midlands based East Asian and South East Asian performers and theatre makers looking to further develop their artistic practice and who want to make their own original work for live performance.
Hongwei Bao (he/him) is a Nottingham-based queer Chinese playwright, poet and academic. He is part of the Fifth Word Playwrights, GOBS Collective and Nottingham Playhouse Writers’ Room, and is also a Middle Way Mentee for writing fiction. His work explores queer desire, Asian identity, diasporic positionality and transcultural intimacy. Hongwei is the author of The Passion of the Rabbit God (Valley Press, 2024), Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (Big White Shed, 2024) and Self-Portrait as a Banana (Poetic Edge, 2025).
He has performed poetry at Bad Betty Live, Broadway Cinema Nottingham, ESEA Authors LitFest, Five Leaves Bookshop, Nottingham Central Library, Nottingham Playhouse and Nottingham Poetry Festival. Hongwei curated Nottingham Chinese Independent Film Festival in 2014 and served on the advisory board of Queer Up Duck! Festival 2024.
Since 2022, he has also produced community arts project including Queer Arts in the Pandemic Festival, Queer Zines, Drag Up!, Poetics of Migration, Ode to Notts, and Building an LGBTQIA+ Friendly Nottingham. Hongwei’s debut stage play ‘Hot Pot’ was performed at the Fifth Word Playwright Showcase at Nottingham Playhouse in 2024.
Safiyya Lea is a Birmingham-born performer, theatre maker and filmmaker working across experimental performance, live art and narrative storytelling. She first found her voice through storytelling programmes at Southwark Playhouse and Camden Roundhouse – later completing her MA at Drama Centre London. Early collaborations included experimental dance films that culminated in an immersive event exploring constructed intimacy in cinema.
Safiyya’s practice is rooted in bold, concept-driven work that fuses movement, film, and devised theatre. A graduate of New Earth Academy, she has since developed a series of short films using food as a way to explore cultural memory, inherited identity, and the spaces where the personal and political intersect.
She is also a member of Move Midlands, a Birmingham-based collective supporting and showcasing Southeast and East Asian artists. Safiyya is passionate about building creative networks that disrupt, delight, and make space for new narratives to take root.
Avery Justine (AJ) De Vera graduated with a degree in BA (Hons) International Relations at Lancaster University and is joining the New Earth Academy to explore the world of theatre making. She has always had an interest in the arts, participating in Belgrade Theatre’s Asian Youth Theatre (2014-2019) and Senior Youth Theatre (2019-2021) as a young actor where different styles and techniques, such as mask performances and site-specific theatre, where explored in creating productions. In these programmes, they have acted, devised, and written pieces exploring themes like, radicalisation, mental health, and queerness. In her final year at Asian Youth Theatre, she co-wrote “The Real Reyes” exploring and challenging colourism in Filipino culture.
Recently they have been involved with performances with Lancaster University’s A Cappella group, in “Strictly Showcase” as a contestant, and the “Made in Cov” project, sharing stories and devising a piece exploring fulfilment and spirituality.
She is grateful for this opportunity and excited to learn and embark on this journey gaining more industry knowledge. They would like to experiment with different styles, including puppetry and physical theatre, and enhance their acting skills. After the Academy, they would like to work on projects, acting and writing productions increasing BESEA representation and stories in the local area and beyond.
Shu-Wen Tung is a Taiwanese actor and theatre-maker based in the UK, and an alumna of East 15 Acting School (MFA). She speaks fluent English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese. With a background in theatre and social work, she is passionate about telling stories that reflect real lives and provoke meaningful questions.
Recent work includes performing with Women & Theatre at the launch of a campaign tackling sex trafficking in the West Midlands. She has also begun exploring puppetry as a new performance language, after completing an intensive workshop with Slot Machine Theatre and Caroline Partridge at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Outside of performance, Shu-Wen supports community arts projects that amplify East and Southeast Asian voices in the West Midlands. Through this Academy, she hopes to develop her own ideas and start shaping the stories she wants to tell.
Alisha Wood is on a mission to create meaningful and expressive theatre. As a multidisciplinary artist, well-versed in singing and acting, she champions this throughout every piece she has performed in and contributed to. Recently, Alisha has been working professionally for an immersive murder mystery theatre company, Murder57, in venues across the country. Most notably, she has performed in the company of ‘Fame’ at the Alexandra Theatre (Principal Ensemble) and has been a part of New Earth Theatre Performers Academy theatre piece ‘Love and Loss’. In addition, she has worked with Coventry University society students with musicals, cabaret nights and choreographing shows, whilst performing alongside.
Moving onto future endeavours, Alisha aims to create theatre pieces utilising music and dance, whilst intertwining aspects of her culture and experiences – making the mundane aspects of life ‘moving’. She hopes to perform in her theatre and further her love and passion to create meaningful and expressive theatre.
Altus Zung Yen Chan is an actor and musician, with a background in opera, theatre, classical music, and jazz. Altus has been a member of groups such as the CBSO Chorus, University of Birmingham Voices, and Move Midlands, having performed at various events such as the BBC Proms, Barbershop Harmony Society International Conventions, and the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festivals. Altus also performed in various amateur productions such as A Little Night Music, Il Signore Bruschino, RENT, H.M.S. Pinafore, and A View from the Bridge.
Altus holds a Master’s degree in Professional Voice Practice at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and an Undergraduate degree in Music at the University of Birmingham, and was part of New Earth Theatre’s Performer’s Academy in 2023. Altus also trained in professional opera and choral singing, and classical and jazz trumpet performance.
Recently, Altus has been exploring on-screen acting, writing, and directing, and made his directorial debut in a production of Il Signore Bruschino with South Birmingham Opera, which he co-founded with the aim of providing accessible opera for all. Altus also enjoys performing at gigs and festivals around Birmingham and London.
Rena Fuad is an actor and singer-songwriter born in Malaysia and raised in the UK. From a young age, she has always felt a connection to the arts and creatively expresses herself through her music, writing and performance.
As an artist, Rena hopes to explore different ways of story-telling, develop new skills and refine current ones, as well as use her voice to share stories about things that inspire her, things we are surrounded with every day but we may take for granted; love, life, community and family.
Growing up, opportunities were scarce for someone of her background and she now wants to break down barriers within herself, her community and for the future generation, and wants to build a sense of belonging through her art.
Quennie Alexa is a multidisciplinary artist and theatre maker. Her creative practice is rooted in the experiences of the working class, global majority, diasporic and historically marginalised communities.
Through using research, movement, archive and memory, she strives to create and build collaboratively and collectively. The development of her practice is fueled by the artists, writers, lecturers, theatre companies, charities, arts organisations and collectives that she has worked and participated with.
“In our rehearsal room we make up the rules. In this space we celebrate playfulness, silliness and conversations over potlocks. Our being becomes the narrative.”