COME THROUGH

Welcome to the very first, COME THROUGH – a festival by artists for artists and audiences! 

We’re shaking things up this year in the scratch world and for the first time, we are showcasing ten brand new extracts (10-15 minutes each) created by the members of Tamasha's 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 150-200 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 our 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. 

More details on workshops will be announced soon. You can register your interest in taking part by emailing samia@tamasha.org.uk.

PERFORMANCES INCLUDE:

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 Vivien Xie. Directed by Simonne Mason

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...