Featuring four new plays written and devised in collaboration with groups of secondary school children, this collection examines immigration to and emigration from the UK. A theatre-in-education project coordinated by Tamasha theatre company and The Migration Museum, children worked on exercises designed to develop their understanding of, and feelings about, migration. Their reactions were then incorporated into a piece of theatre by a professional playwright that the students then performed. This collection brings together these plays along with the unique exercises that inspired them. The plays include:
Nothing to Declare by Sharmila Chauhan follows three precious keepsakes and the stories attached to them as their owners are stopped at a hostile border.
Potato Moon by Satinder Chohan focuses on the potatoes buried in a share allotment. They become people's memories in a magical realist Southall and so when they start to go missing, schoolgirl Mira set out to find out why.
Wilkommen by Asif Khan follows 11 year Ammar on the most dangerous journey of his life, from war-torn country, across sea and land, to take up the offer of a new life in Europe.
Jigsaw by Sumerah Srivstav tells the story of how three angels, horrified by mankind's cruelty, prepare to wipe them out… until they find an unlikely friend who changes their mind.
This is an invaluable collection that gives both teachers the resources to address the sometimes tricky issues surrounding migration and students the opportunity to create and in doing so counteract and humanize the narratives hear in the media and society as a whole.
Satinder Chohan is a journalist and documentary researcher/associate producer turned playwright who won the Adopt A Playwright Award in 2013. Her play MADE IN INDIA (Tamasha, Belgrade and Pilot Theatre) directed by Katie Posner toured the UK in 2017 to great acclaim receiving an OffWestEnd award nomination and winning the award for Best Production at the Eastern Eye awards. Her plays ZAMEEN and KABADDIKABADDIKABADDI have toured the UK with Kalí and Pursued By A Bear respectively and 1984 was part of The Finborough's Vibrant Festival 2014. She won a Kalí Futures Writer Award, completed The Traverse Theatre's Emerging Writers' Residency, was on attachment at the Hampstead Theatre and took part in the Kudos-Court scheme at the Royal Court in 2016. She is currently under commission to co-adapt GULLIVER'S TRAVELS with Mike Kenny for the Bolton Octagon
Asif Khan is an award-winning writer and actor born and raised in Bradford. His debut play COMBUSTION toured the UK in 2017 and received various award nominations including, OffWestEnd's Best New Play award and Best Writer in the Stage Debut awards and wins for Best Production in The Eastern Eye Arts, Culture and Theatre Awards (2018) and The Asian Media Awards (2017). In 2018 Asif won the Channel 4 Playwright's Scheme award with RIFCO and Watford Palace where he was commissioned to write a new play. In 2019, his play IMAAM IMRAAN was produced by the National Youth Theatre, directed by Iqbal Khan, playing at the Bradford Literary Festival. In 2020 Asif was long listed for Box Of Trick's Screen/Play Award in association with Sky Studios. He is a Tamasha alumnus with whom he has developed two plays for teenagers. He was part of the BBC Comedy Room and was named on the BBC New Talent Hotlist in 2017. His five-part audio drama series THIS WEIRD NORMAL is available on various podcast platforms, produced by RADA Audio Productions. With Theatre503 Asif was one of the 19 writers commissioned for the recent ImagiNation Festival 2020.
Sumerah Srivastav is a playwright, librettist and screenwriter with a background in TV, film and radio production.
She is a regular writer on EastEnders and has been identified as a rising star in the BBC's 2017 New Talent Hotlist. She is currently one of fifteen writers selected for a year-long MediaXchange/Creative Skillset Programme on Advanced Writing for TV drama under which she is developing an original television series.
As a playwright she has been a member of the Royal Court's Critical Mass and invited Studio Writers' programmes, Orange Tree Writers Collective, Criterion playwright programme and as a librettist twice taken part in the Stratford East's Musical Theatre Initiative.
Sumerah is a full member of Mercury Musical Developments, the Royal Television Society and the Writers Guild.
Sumerah is a playwright and screenwriter.
As a playwright she has been a member of the Royal Court's Critical Mass and
invited Studio Writers' programmes, Stratford East's Musical Theatre Initiative,Orange Tree Writers Collective and The Criterion playwright programme.
Her plays include Jigsaw, Veiled & Vinegar, The Fairy King, Space Invaders, Downfall and Border Lies. Her work has been performed at Soho, Tristan Bates,Redbridge Drama Centre, Contact, Orange Tree, The Pleasance, The Barbicanand The Criterion. She is currently developing a period play with support fromthe Criterion Theatre Trust and Worthing Theatres. For the screen she has written for EastEnders and her short film Origami
starring Nicholas Pinnock and Pearl Mackie, is currently in post-production. In 2017 she was identified as a rising star in the BBC's New Talent Hotlist. This year she is as a BAFTA Crew participant and has been selected to take part in Vertical Lab, a mentoring programme by the Independent Film Trust.
While completing her novel, Sharmila Chauchan began writing a play and was lucky to be part of Kali’s writer development program whilst pregnant. The birth of her son coincided with selection for the Royal Court’s writing programme and she has also been selected for Tamasha’s TDA course. Her play Born Again/Purnajanam was performed at Southwark Playhouse. A reading of When Spring Comes was performed in association with the South Asian Lit Fest. Her play White Turns to Grey is being developed with Angelic Tales (Rikki Beadle Blair and John Gordon). The Husbands - a tale of polyandry and feminism - has been commissioned by Kali and Pentabus Theatre for tour in 2014.
Fin Kennedy, an award-winning UK playwright, is a graduate of the MA Writing for Performance programme at Goldsmiths College, London. He writes for adults and teenagers and his plays are regularly produced in the UK and around the world. He is also an acclaimed teacher of playwriting and community arts project manager, with a particular focus on young people's projects in London's East End. His second play
How To Disappear Completely & Never Be Found won the 38th Arts Council John Whiting Playwrighting Award. It was subsequently commissioned by Sam West for Sheffield Crucible and produced to critical acclaim in 2007. It has since been produced in London, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Melbourne, Auckland, and Portland, Oregon.
