London theatre director in drive to get new black stories heard

 
Spearhead: Dawn Walton will lead Revolution Mix (Picture: Dan Wooller/REX)

A London theatre director will spearhead a three-year drive to commission black writers to tell stories from their communities.

Dawn Walton will lead Revolution Mix, which has received nearly £250,000 from Arts Council England to support the writing of new plays, a radio piece and two short films.

At least one work will be for an all-female cast.

Walton, of Lewisham, is artistic director of Eclipse Theatre Company, Britain’s foremost black-led ensemble.

She said the aim was to tackle inequality, create a lasting change in UK theatres, and tell a wider variety of stories about the black experience: “There’s a lie we all arrived on the Windrush. We’ve been in this country a long time.”

When Eclipse toured Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Athol Fugard’s play set in apartheid South Africa, it attracted new audiences to the theatre, she pointed out: “Our plays work with a mixed audience and it is much more effective if it’s a shared experience.

“I think there’s a real appetite for change.”

She said Exhibit B, the Barbican’s recreation of “human zoos” which was shut after protests, would not have faced such pressure if more black work was taking place: “It would never have escalated the way it did if there were lots of black British stories.”

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