Talawa Theatre Company

Talawa Theatre Company, founded in London in 1986,[1] is a UK black theatre company.[2] The company has produced award-winning plays from and about the African diaspora and has championed reinterpretations of classical British pieces.[2][3][4]

Jamaican-born Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Munroe and Inigo Espejel founded the company in 1986.[1][5][6] The name Talawa comes from Jamaican patois, meaning "small but feisty".[4][7]

Today

The company's mission is to provide opportunities for black actors, to use black culture to enrich British theatre, and to enlarge theatre audiences among the black community.[1] The company also runs workshops for schools and colleges.[8] Talawa Theatre Company’s current Artistic Director is Michael Buffong.[9][10]

Talawa Theatre Company is currently touring a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.[11][12][13]

History

Yvonne Brewster and the other founders were galvanised by the existence of other black theatre companies at the time such as Temba, Black Theatre Cooperative (later Nitro) and Tara Arts to apply for a grant from the Greater London Council's Race Equality Unit. The £80,000 they received covered the cost of their first production in 1986, The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James, which had not been performed in England for fifty years, and never before with an all-black cast.[2] Also in 1986, Yvonne Brewster directed Dennis Scott's An Echo in the Bone, and in 1988 O Babylon! by Derek Walcott and Galt McDermot. In the following years Talawa put on a wide range of productions, mainly by established African and Caribbean writers, including Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Michael Abbensetts and Trevor Rhone.[2]

Today, Talawa Theatre Company produces one touring production a year.[10] The 2013/2014 production was a revival of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John and toured across the UK, in addition to playing at the Royal National Theatre.[14][15] Talawa Theatre Company is currently touring a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.[12][16]

As well as touring major works across the UK, Talawa Theatre Company commissions new plays, offers a script reading service and produces an annual season of play readings, Talawa Firsts, which showcases the best of Black British writing talent. Talawa Theatre Company supports and develop emerging theatre-makers – performers, designers and technicians – through their flagship participation programme TYPT and Talawa Firsts.[5][6][8][17]

Talawa also delivers a range of inclusive outreach activities for participants of all ages. 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.[8]

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

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."[8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Black & Asian Performance in Britain 1970 onwards - Talawa Theatre Company". V&A.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Records of Talawa Theatre Company, 1962-2007", Victoria and Albert Museum: Theatre Collections.
  3. ↑ Helen Kolawole, "Look who's taking the stage", The Guardian, 26 July 2003.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "New Black theatre companies", Moving Here – Migration histories.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Nick Curtis, "Michael Buffong: ‘I want to turn Talawa into the go-to company for black talent’", London Evening Standard, 15 August 2012.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Nosheen Iqbal, "Talawa theatre company: the fights of our lives", The Guardian, 29 May 2011.
  7. ↑ Nisha Obano, "Talawa Theatre Company". Encyclopedia of AfroEuropean Studies.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "About Talawa", Talawa theatre website.
  9. ↑ Natalie Woolman, "Michael Buffong appointed Talawa artistic director", The Stage, 13 October 2011.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Bringing Black into the Theatre Mainstream: "Michael Buffong, artistic director, Talawa Theatre Company", Arts Industry (AI), 16 December 2012.
  11. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31363531
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2015/sons/
  13. ↑ http://www.whatsonstage.com/ipswich-theatre/reviews/all-my-sons-talawa-tour_37186.html
  14. ↑ "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John", National Theatre.
  15. ↑ Kate Kellaway, "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl; Can We Talk about This?; Shivered – review", The Observer, 18 March 2012.
  16. ↑ http://www.thepublicreviews.com/all-my-sons-new-wolsey-theatre-ipswich/
  17. ↑ John Nassouri, "Islington people: BBC director takes reins at Black-led theatre company", Islington Gazette, 24 June 2012.

External links