Kali Theatre Announces HOME - Six New Plays Exploring and Reimagining Ideas of 'Home'

Celebrating its 30th Birthday and a return to live performances, Kali Theatre presents HOME - a week of script-in-hand productions of six cutting-edge new plays commissioned by the company to explore, challenge, and reimagine ideas of 'home'. Four established playwrights and two innovative emerging writers ask what it means to call Britain home in 2021 from the unique perspective of female writers with a South Asian background.

The playwrights include: Naylah Ahmed (Bruntwood Prize winner, Butcher Boys), Alia Bano (Evening Standard + Critics Circle Award winner, Shades), Sonali Bhattacharyya (Sonia Friedman Production Award, Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award, Chasing Hares), and Satinder Chohan (Eastern Eye ACTA award, Made In India). Excerpts of plays by these four women are included in Kali's anthology THIRTY, recently published by Methuen Drama to mark the company's 30th anniversary. Their new plays are featured in HOME alongside work by Sarah Isaac (winner of the inaugural SKY RSL Arts Award) and Maeve Scullion, whose talents have been identified through Kali's DISCOVERY programme.

Through HOME, Kali Theatre is supporting established writers to the next stage of their careers, whilst also spotlighting new talent. Across a development period supported by leading directors and dramaturgs, the six writers have created plays with themes including citizenship, colonialism, terrorism, family, and belonging.

Helena Bell, Artistic Director: 'Through HOME, Kali Theatre is supporting writers with proven success as they work towards the next level in their career - enabling them to explore new territory and take risks. Alongside these plays, we are showcasing two talented new writers who we found through our Discovery programme. After a period of development and collaboration with fantastic directors, dramaturgs and actors, we are really excited to be presenting all six plays to audiences in live performances again.'

The HOME plays are the culmination of a busy year for Kali celebrating its 30th Birthday. In May, Methuen Drama published THIRTY - a book of 30 extracts from plays Kali has presented over the past 30 years. At the same time, it launched an Online Script Shop where those plays can be ordered. Then in June with the support of seven partner theatres, it brought over 90 writers, directors and literary managers together for On the Shoulders of Kali - an online symposium to discuss issues still faced by UK South Asian women playwrights.

For thirty years, Kali Theatre has been at the forefront of putting greater diversity into British theatre. Many writers whose work was first championed by Kali have gone on to write for mainstream theatre companies, TV and radio - including the Almeida, Soho Theatre, High Tide, Southwark Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith, Birmingham Rep, Hampstead, National Theatre Studio, BBC Radio 4, CBBC, Casualty, Coronation Street, EastEnders, and The Archers - making a major contribution to increased diversity within UK drama writing.

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