Productions
Created by Maya Shimmin.
Can one pill really change everything? How does it feel to slowly lose your mind?
Over 3.5 million women, trans and non-binary people are on the contraceptive pill in the UK, yet this topic is something which is rarely talked about or presented onstage. Dosage aims to challenge the silence surrounding the side-effects of the contraceptive pill by presenting a platform to showcase and discuss experiences.
Using live sound design, live film, spoken word, games with the audience and Marmite toast, the performance explores what living in an alternate reality with mental health feels like, how to keep calm and carry on and what ‘survival’, ‘recovery’ and ‘hope’ really look like for someone once they’ve been through trauma.
DOSAGE is Co-produced by Fable Workshop and is supported by Theatre Deli, Arts Council England, and, The Yellow. Photos by Amanda Rose
The Think Tank
The Think Tank is an ongoing project that looks to engage children and young people in political conversation. The projected is being led by Sean Hollands in collaboration with Gavin Maxwell from GymJam. The first phase of the project was created in collaboration with Upstart Theatre's DARE Festival in 2021, supported by Arts Council England and Shoreditch Town Hall.
The first performance worked with 6 young actors from the Mishmak Youth Theatre and we presented a 30 minute work in progress performance at the DARE Festival to online audiences. The production was fully playable and asked an adult audience to engage in child like games to inspire solutions to the world's toughest problems.
The project is still ongoing and we aim to partner with schools and youth organisations to develop a document which will support practitioners to platform children's world views.
Orange Juice
Adam is a young British Pakistani Muslim. Stuck between Ravi, his boisterous friend, and Miriam, his devout and traditional mother, he is forced to discover who he really is, and who he wants to be. Adam is on the verge of becoming a man, but how easy is that transition? During his journey, he is confronted with startling truths about the people he thought he knew most about, as well as himself.
Written by Karim Kahn and starring Shiv Jalota, Orange Juice was presented at the Tristan Bates Theatre in 2019.
Assistant Direction from Ashen Gupta
Stage Direction from Roni Neale
The production is also grateful to the Haringey Shed and the Old Vic for offering us rehearsal space through the process.
Produced at the start of the 2020 lockdown, Fable Workshop produced 4 live stream events called Quaranscenes. We put the call out for writers and actors to take part in the live streams. Matching actors up with submitted scripts. Each episode lasted around 45 minutes, and showcased some of the most exciting upcoming talent in the UK.
We received over 150 scripts from all over the world. The response was so huge that we have committed to exploring the project further, investigating how we can continue to showcase the very best talent in the digital space. To watch the recordings of Quaranscenes head to our YouTube channel.
