phosphoros theatre

refugees take centre stage

Phosphoros Theatre was founded in 2015 and is an award-winning, industry-leading company, focused on amplifying refugee voices and bringing them to the main stage. We make socially engaged performance with, for, and by refugees and asylum seekers. We make and hold space for those with forced migration backgrounds to voice, reflect on and respond to their lived experience, taking charge of the narratives that seldom include their perspective. We create nationally touring productions, deliver one-off and regular arts work with refugees, train professionals and provide paid work, training and development opportunities for refugee artists and youth workers.

Our fifth show ‘Tender’ toured in Spring 2024 and hopefully will return to theatres soon. Our Phosphoros Young Company for young refugees and asylum-seekers aged 16-21 year olds runs weekly. Phosphoros Sisters, is for refugee and-seeking women and girls. We are officially recognised as a Theatre Company of Sanctuary by City of Sanctuary.

£10 pays for a free ticket to one of our shows for a young refugee or asylum-seeker
£15 pays for a volunteer’s travel and expenses to support a workshop
£20 pays for a framed poster mementos for our members
£50 pays for travel for a refugee woman to come to a creative retreat
£100 pays for a meal for a refugee group after a show
£250 pays for a free drama workshop for a refugee group or ESOL class

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After months in planning we were so pleased to kickstart our new collaboration with our friends at @stories_supper on Thursday, with a team training day. Abel, Ismael and Kate will be working with on a project developed by Olivia Sheringham, who is a lecturer at Birkbeck University. The project, Home-City: Spaces of Care, will explore different ways of understanding and practising ‘care’ in the context of hostile immigration policies. We spent the day reflecting on care-led arts practice, power, inclusivity and collaboration, supported by Sue Mayo @breaks_and_joins. We’re looking for folks aged 18+ to join this project, which will take place in Walthamstow on Thursday (daytime) from January. DM or message if you’re interested in joining, and we’ll share more information soon!

We had the BEST fun yesterday at @hydeparkwinterwonderland, thanks to #WinterWishes! 🎡 Our crew had a brilliant time on thrill-seeking rollercoasters (and a much calmer ride on the ferris wheel!), morphing from baby deer to slightly more graceful skaters on the ice rink, colliding in bumper cars and soaking up festive vibes 🎢 To top it off we watched Zippo’s Circus’ show ‘Candyland’ which had impressive acrobatics, show-stopping costumes and spectacular stunts 🎪 Not only was this an enormously fun trip, it was an opportunity for our members to go outside of their comfort zones, feel brave, and quite literally fall down and get back up again (and again) ⛸️ Thanks SO much to Winter Wonderland for making this trip possible! 🎠

In Young Company we’ve been working on our Winter show! It’s an exciting physical theatre piece featuring, dance, movement, songs, poetry and more. In yesterday’s devising session, we created scenes with objects as stimuli. We had an old-school telephone, and an even more old-school radio. These are some snapshots into the work we made based on these objects, and we can’t wait to share more of what we’ve created in the show!

Turning up the heat in Young Company this week! 🔥 We only have a few weeks till our end of year show, so are busy in rehearsals. The performance is movement and dance based, and we’ve loved having the opportunity to learn from each other’s dance traditions 🌍 It was brilliant to learn some basic salsa moves from one of our members, have a demonstration of Colombian dance, and finally finish our session led by Santi’s rendition of Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ 🕺🏽💃🏽

Last week we went to see Wolves on Road at @bushtheatre, written by Beru Tessema. We saw Beru’s last show, House of Ife, so were excited to see his next play which also shone a light on life in the ends with a foot back in Ethiopia. Wolves on Road explored the complex and alarming world of crypto currency and its troubling allure. We loved the show and it gave us lots to talk about! 📈 We were also pleased to meet a new friend who joined us for our trip, Aman, a respected performer from Ethiopia currently touring his solo show in the UK, supported by comedian and Phosphoros OG @jr_tewodros 🎤 A great night all round! Thanks for the tickets, Bush!