Talawa Theatre Company

Talawa Theatre Company is a Black British theatre company founded in 1986.^[1][2] The core of the company's work is championing reinterpretations of classic plays, developing new writing and directing talent and producing award-winning plays from and about the African diaspora.^[2][3][4][5] The Company is a National Portfolio Organisation, supported by funding from Arts Council England in recognition of consistent high quality work and audience development.^[6]

Since 2011 Talawa Theatre Company has been led by artistic director Michael Buffong, whose career spans theatre, TV and film.^{[7][8][9][10][10][11]}

The name Talawa comes from Jamaican patois saying "me lickle but me talawa",^[12] meaning "small but feisty".^[4][13]

Mission

Talawa Theatre Company's Mission Statement: "Talawa is Britain's primary Black led theatre company. We create outstanding work informed by the wealth and diversity of the Black British experience. We invest in talent, build audiences and inspire dialogue with and within communities across Britain. By doing so we enrich British cultural life."^[14]

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.^[1] 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.^[7][14]

Today

Talawa Theatre Company's artistic director is Michael Buffong.^{[9][10][10][11][15][16][17]}

Talawa Theatre Company produces a major touring production annually.^[11] 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.^[18][19]

Talawa Theatre Company toured a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons from 12 February to 25 April 2015.^{[20][20][21][22][23]}

In October 2015, Talawa announced a new production of William Shakespeare's King Lear starring Don Warrington in the title role.^[17][24][25] 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",^[26][27] "a significant production"^[28] and "outstanding".^[29] Don Warrington's performance as King Lear was described as "a heartbreaking tour de force".^[30]

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 and closing 2016 by being screened on BBC4.^[31][32][33]

Also in 2016, Talawa also co-produced the award-winning play by Theresa Ikoko,^[34] Girls, the story of three young women kidnapped by Islamic extremists.^{[34][35][36][37]} The Times referred to Girls as “Scorchingly intelligent and as powerful as a gut punch”^[35] while Time Out called it " ... clever, audacious, entertaining and full of promise." ^[38]

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.^[39][40] 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.^[40][41]

As well as touring major works across the UK, Talawa Theatre Company commissions new plays, develops artists and directors, 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^[7] – performers, designers and technicians – through their flagship participation programme TYPT and Talawa Firsts.^{[14][42][43][44]}

The company’s outreach activities are bespoke and vary widely: from curriculum-based work with schools to poetry workshops in prisons; from diversity training with the NHS to devising new work with emerging theatre-makers.^[14]

History

Jamaican-born Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Munroe and Inigo Espejel founded the company in 1986.^[1][42][43] 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.^[2]

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.^[2][45]

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

References

External links

• Talawa Theatre Company website.
• Nosheen Iqbal, "Talawa theatre company: the fights of our lives", The Guardian, 29 May 2011.
• Nisha Obano, "Talawa Theatre Company", in Encyclopedia of AfroEuropean Studies.
• "Records of Talawa Theatre Company, 1962-2007". Victoria and Albert Museum: Theatre Collections.
• "Talawa Turns 25! Renowned black theatre company celebrates its Silver Jubilee", The Voice, 9 October 2011.