TFTI PANEL: Diversifying and Decolonising the Industry/Curriculum

Event details

This panel event brings together leading theatre industry professionals to talk about their work as artists, makers and practitioners. This event also provides an opportunity for the TFTI Theatre Team’s Diversifying and Decolonising working group to feed back to the TFTI community on how they are engaging actively with the department’s commitment to these issues. Please join us for a panel discussion and Q&A.

Panel Guests

Nick Ahad

Nick Ahad is a multiple award winning writer and broadcaster. As a broadcaster he has presented hundreds of hours of live radio for the BBC and many onscreen events for organisations including Leeds 2025, the Holmfirth Arts Festival and Ilkley Literature Festival. In November 2020 he joined the leading Radio 4 arts programme Front Row as a presenter and is an award-nominated broadcaster for BBC Radio Leeds where he has presented his own weekend shows since 2014.  As a writer he has worked with Leeds Playhouse, Red Ladder, Tamasha, Eclipse Theatre, Northern Broadsides, has written for TV and Film and regularly broadcasts as a radio presenter. Nick is a guest tutor on the MA Playwriting here in TFTI.

Naomi Sumner Chan 

Naomi is a Manchester based playwright and dramaturg fuelled by salt and vinegar crisps and mugs of tea. She leads new writing company Brush Stroke Order, working with artists to develop text based work for live performance. Her work has been performed at theatres across the North of England and in London including York Theatre Royal, CAST, Oldham Coliseum, Arcola Theatre and Theatre 503. In 2017 Eclipse Theatre, Pilot Theatre and York Theatre Royal commissioned her play SAME SAME DIFFERENT which toured in Spring 2019.  Her play Dollars and Sense was shortlisted for The Womens Playwriting Prize 2021.

Esther Richardson 

Esther is the Artistic Director of Pilot Theatre, who won the award for Excellence in Touring at the UK Theatre Awards in 2019. Esther has also held the positions of Associate Artist at Soho Theatre, Derby LIVE and Cast in Doncaster. Career highlights have included: creating and producing the Momentum Young Writers’ Festival, which was nominated for The Stage’s award for Special Achievement in Regional Theatre (2006); directing the opening production for Cast in Doncaster (2013); adapting and directing the short film The Cake, the selected UK film for the Women in Film and Television International Showcase (2012); and directing the sold-out run of Noughts and Crosses that was nominated for best production for young people at the UK Stage Awards and played to transfixed teen audiences all around the UK (2019). Esther is currently working on The Bone Sparrow, an adaptation of the novel by Zana Fraillon by playwright S. Shakthidharan. 

Beth Sitek

Beth is a queer freelance producer born in Leeds and based in London working across theatre, cabaret, live art and events. All of their work aims to support, develop and platform original work that merges genres and crosses forms from LGBTQIA+, working class and neurodivergent artists. Beth has produced work with award-winning artists at Soho Theatre, The Pleasance and Camden People's Theatre, among others. They were part of the national Freelance Task Force in 2020 and most recently, the Creative Freelancers: Shaping London's Recovery cohort with The Barbican in association with the Mayor of London. Beth is a recent TFTI graduate.

Xolani Crabtree

Xolani is a Leeds based Director, Movement Director and Performer who trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Her theatre journey began in 2021 at Leeds Playhouse. Theatre credits include: Mugabe My Dad and Me (English Touring Theatre, Brixton House, York Theatre Royal), Northern Girls (Pilot), A Little Night Music (Leeds Playhouse and Opera North), Wendy and Peter Pan (Leeds Playhouse and Bunkamura). Facilitator credits: Phoenix Dance Theatre, Northern Dance, Adidas.

Suzann McLean 

Suzann is an actor, director and Artistic Director of Theatre Peckham. Suzann has worked extensively on both stage and screen, credits include Good Omens, The Honourable Woman, Dr Who, Little Miss Jocelyn, Measure For Measure (National Theatre), A Raisin in the Sun (Synergy Theatre), Dog Beneath the Skin (Jermyn Street Theatre) and Winner of British Arrows Gold award for Best Performance 2017. Suzann trained in Acting at Italia Conti Academy and has an MA from Middlesex university in Directing and Producing theatre for social change.

Hosted by Dr Bridget Foreman 

Bridget is a playwright, and Lecturer in Playwriting at the University of York, where she is co-programme leader for MA Playwriting. Her forthcoming work includes a major new commission for York Theatre Royal and an adaptation of Antigone for performance in Aida Refugee Camp (Palestine) with Palestinian playwright Abdelfatteh Abusruor. She is contributing a chapter, co-authored by Butshilo Nleya, to the forthcoming book, Decentered Playwriting (pub. Routledge). www.bridgetforeman.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE: We are working hard in covid conditions to reinvigorate TFTI’s programme of visiting practitioners, events and masterclasses. Where possible we are trying to make these in person and face to face. Please support our commitment to bringing you the leading industry professionals - if you sign up, please remember to show up! :)