Talawa, the UK’s outstanding Black theatre company, has announced their exciting 2024 season, which will see the return of Talawa Firsts and TYPT, as well as their celebratory Black Joy season.
Black Joy 2024 is a season of theatre and workshops celebrating Black stories and artists, a partnership between Talawa, Olivier Award-winning J Clare Productions and Chuchu Ngawu Productions to create local and national opportunities for Black artists. Black Joy 2024 will feature a new touring Studio Commission, Seed Commissions supporting Black artists around the country, and a major musical production, Play On! A joyous and jazz-fuelled retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Play On! vividly brings to life the 1940s jazz scene, set to a toe-tapping Duke Ellington soundtrack, touring from September 2024. When a young songwriter arrives at the Cotton Club, she decides disguising herself as a man will give her a better shot in the music industry – but when she meets club owner The Duke and singing sensation Lady Liv, Vy is swept up in a syncopated symphony of melodies, mistaken identities and romance.
2024 will see the return of Talawa Firsts for its 12th year, with a fortnight of fun theatre firsts. From 1st – 12th July, Talawa brings back their expanded, bigger-than-ever festival of new ideas for a second year running. Talawa Firsts will feature new and emerging work by Black creative and production artists, from workshops and link-up events, a rooftop club night, scratch nights and two double-bills of new writing.
Following the success of Talawa Firsts 2023, which saw an expansion of the programme to become a full two-week-long festival of new work and workshops, 2024 will see Talawa Firsts on Tour. Two of the Talawa Firsts 2023 new works will head on tour across the UK, to Nottingham Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic and Talawa HQ in Croydon this spring. The two pieces will be presented as a double-bill: Bougie Lanre’s Boulangerie, by acclaimed poet Kareem Parkins-Brown, is an autobiographical production chronicling his time working in the hospitality industry attempting to make ends meet as a Black, working-class artist that will have audiences reconsidering how they behave in restaurants. Love in Gravitational Waves is a two-hander inspired by real-life interviews about the vapid nature of contemporary dating by award-winning playwright and hip-hop artist Testament. Through a series of dates and app interactions, the audience will meet characters in search of something better in this play about love, identity, fate – and swiping right.
TYPT is Talawa’s theatre laboratory scheme, providing a chance for emerging and established theatre makers to collaborate on new work from mid-July to mid-August. Emerging theatre makers aged 18-25 can take part in a 4-week intensive programme, creating a new theatre piece from scratch through a collaborative process with established creators. TYPT is a steppingstone for emerging Black performers, directors, designers, technicians and more, offering a unique space where every part of the theatre-making process is shown and explored. The TYPT programme culminates in a series of shows of the new production.
Talawa Connects is the theatre company’s programme dedicated to creating connections and developing local artists through workshops and networking. Returning this year, Talawa Connects will see 10 events from April 2024 – June 2025, including talks and workshops by acclaimed writer and director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu.
Continuing their work with the Association of Jamaicans UK, Talawa is hosting a creative programme for Older People in the Croydon community. In 2023, they worked with older people to collect and archive stories as part of London Borough of Culture’s Our Croydon programme, including the short film Legacy. With Community Engagement Assistant Producer Regina Agard-Braithwaite, Talawa will facilitate poetry workshops for older Croydon residents.
For the first time, Talawa is expanding into the area of early years work for 0 – 5-year-olds. The are providing shows and early years settings for Croydon residents and those further afield, working with known and established artists to create work for this age range over the next few years. As part of this drive to create more culturally diverse work for early years, Talawa is working in collaboration with Unicorn Theatre’s artist development programme, which will culminate in a brand new co-production in 2025.
In 2024, Talawa is reinvigorating its Unconscious Bias and Anti-Racism Training, with training opportunities and wellbeing offerings within the programme. Talawa will pilot bespoke offerings for organisations and individuals who continue the important work championing diversity and inclusion.
Talawa’s Executive Director Carolyn ML Forsyth comments, Our 2024 season has, quite literally, been years in the making. We welcome the arrival to the stage of Play On!, our passion project featuring as part of Black Joy – a unique opportunity to once again take Black-made theatre production nationwide. Talawa in 2024 sees the return of our established workstreams in TYPT and Talawa Firsts, and an expansion of our workshop and Fringe theatre events through Talawa Connect and Talawa Firsts on Tour. In addition, we will continue to lead the way in creating supportive and inclusive environments for Global Majority artists and audiences through our training programmes.
