Who is She is a project created by Nancy Medina and Chinonyerem Odimba.  We want to have conversations about how public art can be a place for justice for those erased, and a place to assert ownership. Partnering with creatives and communities, we hope to create work that’s an exploration of our relationship to natural spaces, spaces charged with colonial history; and what it is to express ourselves through technology as Black artists.

It is part of A National Conversation, a UK wide project produced by ETT.

Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark

Written and Performed by Alissa Anne Jeun Yi

Following Government advice about new national Coronavirus measures, we have sadly had to cancel the performance of Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark on Sat 7 Nov. We’ll be in touch with ticket holders today. Thank you for your support and patience during this time.

Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark is an open-air fireside storytelling event with a difference.

This November 7th at sunset, around a roaring fire, with hot chocolates and blankets, writer and performer Alissa Anne Jeun Yi will take you on a wild storytelling journey all about a lighthouse in the darkness, arrivals from the sea, and the kindness and cruelty of strangers. This is an imaginative and disturbing story about the dark, about community, about fear, about history, about migration, about Kent, about being an island, about now, about Alissa – and about us.

Alissa is an exceptional writer whose debut show Love Songs (Soho Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, Chinese Arts Now) received Guardian Pick of the Fringe, was nominated for two Edinburgh comedy awards and the Tony Craze Award. She has written and performed work at various UK festivals, in addition to making work for the V&A Museum, the Bush Theatre and BBC Radio 3.

With Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark, she tells a personal story about her own home county of Kent, responding to this time of madness and strife. It is mischievous, funny, insightful, wild, subversive… and returns to the roots of theatre by sharing a simple story around a fire. Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark is a way to come together (at an appropriate social distance of course) and join in a shared experience.

This is part of the Signal Fires project which is a collective touring initiative that will see new work staged UK-wide throughout October and November. Over 40 of the UK’s top touring theatre companies are taking part at a time when traditional touring isn’t possible. To find out more about Signal Fires, click here.

During the lockdown period with theatres closed, we have been keen to try and keep working with freelancers on creative projects to keep audiences engaged and entertained at home. From games to videos to audio projects, we have been trying to stay engaged with families and households across the UK.

We made an animated short called WHAT’S GOING ON, written by Megan Cronin, animated by Monica Leigh and voices by Stephen Mangan and Daisy Haggard. The video is aimed at children, explaining in a playful way why we’ve all had to stay inside. Check it out in Watch & Listen.

We also commissioned extraordinary poet Muneera Pilgrim to write and perform a piece inspired by themes of isolation. Check out her piece Reiki here. Muneera also provided some poetry exercises so that people could generate their own spoken word pieces at home!

Poetry writing exercise #1 from Muneera Pilgrim:

Think of a theme. Defining themes work well, for example love. Write a list of about 10-15 things that love is to you: they can be words, short sentences, phrases – but it has to be personal to you. If you get stuck, questions to think about include: how does it feel, smell, taste, sound, look? Is it real or imagined? Is it metaphorical? How does it make your body respond? Does anyone know? Is it a secret?  Love is… sneaking a piece of jerk chicken out of the now browning dutch pot, yet knowing that if I was caught, it would be fine anyway.

Poetry writing exercise #2 from Muneera Pilgrim:

A) freewrite for 3 minutes: no over thinking! The only rule is don’t let your pen stop.  B) then another freewrite, this time focused on how you are feeling at the moment – same timeframe, 3 minutes. C) write one more freewrite focused on a material or a texture, e.g. soft, furry, thatched – again you have 3 minutes. Read back your freewrites, and pick out the lines that resonate with you the most. Gather all of those lines and order them to make an abstract poem.

Poetry writing exercise #3 from Muneera Pilgrim:

Open up a poetry book at a random page, and without paying too much attention pick a line in the middle of the poem. That is the opening line of your poem! Give yourself 15 minutes to write the rest of it. If you get stuck, choose another line to add to your poem.

Then, to mark Shakespeare’s birthday, Digital Theatre+ made the ETT, Oxford Playhouse and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory production of Othello available free on their educational platform as part of the second International Online Theatre Festival.

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We asked some of our artists and audiences to tell us their desert island plays – five pieces of drama they would take with them on a desert island. We were delighted with the responses (and added quite a few things to our reading list!).

Keep an eye on Latest News and on our Social Media for more updates on the work we’re making while theatres are closed. For our full statement on the COVID-19 pandemic, please click here.

ETT  and  Amal (a programme of the Saïd Foundation)  collaborated on The Othello Project: a series  of talks, workshops and artistic responses, curated with theatres  and local artists across the country around the 2017 and 2018 UK tours of Othello.

The Othello Project gave a platform to some of the most exciting Muslim artists and writers working in the UK today, shining a light on the contemporary themes of the play. The Othello Project includes work from spoken word artist Tanya Muneera Williams, playwright Iman Qureshi, visual artist Mohammed Ali, a collaboration with Voices on their Young Muslim Voices film project, and many others.

To kick off the project in 2017, we hosted a number of pre- and post-show discussion events on ‘reimagining Othello’. We held a photography exhibition titled ‘The East End of Islam’ by Rehan Jamil, and commissioned a documentary by the excellent Nadir Nahdi which followed the rehearsals of the production of Othello and investigates the themes of the play. 

We went into schools to run workshops and provided 200 free tickets for school children. We hosted a festival which included live music event Live Oud with performance by Kareem Samara, a performance by Poetic Pilgrimage, a performance of short plays by Firdos Ali, Hassan Abdul Razzak and Avaes Mohammedand. We also commissioned the first season of our Othello Project podcast – if you want to have a listen, scroll to the bottom of the page for a link! 

In 2018, ETT and Amal (a programme of the Said Foundation) collaborated on The Othello Project – a series of talks, workshops and artistic responses, curated with tour venues and local artists alongside the 2018 UK tour of Othello. Visiting 8 different cities across the UK, activity included:

• The Othello Project commissioned Iman Qureshi to create a new piece of work in response to Othello, the play has been performed and discussed in 2 staged readings and will be recorded as a radio play for the 2nd season of The Othello Project Podcast series. Iman was interested in interrogating the misogyny and patriarchy that can be read in Othello and platforms on the voice of a woman in the discussions around faith, race and violence.
• The Oldham Coliseum worked with a local Muslim women’s group for a series of workshops with a facilitator, visual artist and Tanya Muneera Williams which culminated in a sensory exhibition exploring their response to the production and their experiences as British Muslims. The exhibition included artwork, a sound installation and poetry and was presented to the public between a matinee and evening performance.
• The Laurence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, in addition to their day of food, music and poetry invited local artists and school groups to respond creatively to the production. These were shared as scratch performances and included a live reading of Iman’s response play.
• CAST in Doncaster hosted a pre-show event for local BME cultural and political leaders including the leader of the Muslim Scouts, Majeed Khan – Mayor of Doncaster and Akeela Mohammed the Deputy Lieutenant of South Yorkshire. Tanya Muneera Williams performed as part of this event before the group saw the show.
• CAST also hosted a pre-show ‘Celebrating the Windrush Generation Past and Present’ event which included a panel discussion, music and a performance from Tanya Muneera Williams who also spoke about her experience as a Black British Muslim.
• The Othello Project commissioned renowned visual artist Mohammed Ali to create an artistic response to the production.
• Writer, performer, poet and facilitator, Tanya Muneera Williams delivered workshops across the tour in response to the production. The workshops were with schools, community groups, refugees and local artists and performance poet Rakaya Fetuga joined Tanya for some of these.
• Collaborating with Northern Stage, we commissioned local young artist Humira Imtiaz for the development of a new piece of work.

In partnership with Speakers Collective we hosted post-show panel discussions across the tour, with guests including Mental Health campaigner Jon Salmon, Talk Club UK co-founder Ben Akers, Co-director of Freedom of Mind Festival Cai Burton, CEO of HOOT Creative Arts Gavin Clayton, Andrew Greenaway of Andy’s Man Club, Co-founder of If U Care, Share campaign group Shirley Smith, actor and mental health campaigner Danny Rahim, mental health campaigner Angela Samata consultant clinical psychologist Kath Davies, writer and podcaster Chris O’Connor and Community Director Claire Irving.

We toured a ‘sharing board’ to each city across the tour which became a physical space for audiences to ‘share the things that help make you feel better’ alongside the hashtag ReasonsPlay on twitter.

The Mindfulness in Schools charity were commissioned to create a Discussion guide for the production.

We worked with local partners and charities to identify groups and community members for whom the production might resonate but may not necessarily book to see a theatre show and offered free/discounted tickets.