Guest Author

Here in the UK, the Finance Bill 2024 Gen Z Protests in Kenya were a moment that came and passed by unnoticed. This is not surprising, as most people in the UK, and indeed most people in the world, are living in a day-to-day survival mode, battling the cost of living crisis or simply trying to get by.

For as long as I’ve been a performer, I’ve been fascinated by what makes a performance compelling. Not just technically accomplished or charismatic, but complete. In ballet, we talk about storytelling through movement. In Musical Theatre, that storytelling becomes a conversation between dance, acting and singing.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a bold musical which tells the true story of William Kamkwamba who had the courage to dream in the face of impossible odds. It is 25 years since William's initial invention of the first turbine with this production marking the ongoing impact and retelling of his story. William’s closest friend Gilbert, the son of the Chief Wimbe, was integral in supporting, fund and labour for William’s windmill project.​​​​​​​Idriss Kargbo plays Gilbert – William’s best friend from Malawi (whom he is still friends with) now writes about his experience in playing the role.

Why bother doing another Marriage of Figaro? There are four more happening in 2026, from traditional powerhouse companies Royal Ballet and Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera North and Scottish Opera. So why are Wild Arts putting on another one?

The Egg Theatre is a pioneering space in Bath where children and young people discover the power of theatre. Each year, they present over 400 performances, run dynamic participation programmes, and champion accessibility. The Egg is celebrating 20 years of work with a new adaptation of Francis Hidgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Artistic director of The Egg Kate Cross told BroadwayWorld the adaptation, the work of the theatre and why stereotypes need to be challenged.

Adapting Toto the Ninja Cat and The Great Snake Escape for the stage has been both an honour and an enormous responsibility. Not only is the story clearly very close to Dermot O'Leary’s heart (the cats are inspired by his own) but the books are deeply loved by thousands of young readers. When children arrive at the theatre already carrying a story in their imagination, you have to treat that trust very carefully. The challenge is finding a way to stay true to the essence of the book while also allowing the creative team to make something genuinely theatrical and new.

I never thought once thought about what the songs were about when I was a kid, I was just trying to learn the basslines – but now, with a few brain cells more, listening to the lyrics, the thematics of these songs are revealed as lurid, dark, satirical, political. It’s just that the music rocks hard and is funky as hell. And I think it’s in this spirit that I wrote the heavy metal arthouse mayhem that is FOAL.

In the late nineties, my childhood self was growing up in the wilderness surrounded by bears and wolves on a remote island in the James Bay, Canada. He would never have expected that in 2026 he would find himself on the stage in London’s West End, playing one of the most iconic characters in contemporary North American literature. 

We are staging Howie in the round because it offers special possibilities: people can see each other’s faces, which gives actors the chance to play to different sections of the audience for others to witness. The play is oration, and the Cockpit is two amphitheatres joined together. But it is also conflict and the Cockpit’s alter ego is an arena.

Not long ago, I found myself doing that familiar pre-theater math: watching the clock at the end of the workday, checking train times, wondering if there was time to grab a quick dinner, and thinking, “Can I actually make this curtain without it feeling rushed?” It is a small thing, but it can make the difference between a great night out and a stressful one.

Ten years ago, we introduced the world to a two-foot puppet made of cloth at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe. Little did we know that Fred would take us to over 145 cities across 20 countries and three continents, seen by 25,000 people. Not bad for a scrap of fabric with something to say.

As a grown-up theater kid, seeing a Broadway actor out and about in the “real world” always had a bit of a “seeing a teacher in the grocery store” feeling to me.

Firstly, I guess I should start off by introducing myself. My name is Tosh Wanogho-Maud, and I’m playing Lola on a Monday and perhaps a few other times that circumstances might allow in the brand-new production of the Olivier, Tony and Grammy Award-winning Kinky BootsThe Musical.

As the stigma around therapy continues to fade and people speak more openly about their experiences, the language of therapy has quietly slipped out of the consulting room and into everyday conversation.

Laura K Bailey was cast as J.K. Rowling in a play that drew widespread attention at the Edinburgh Festival in 2024. Her new show, Rowling In It, revisits that experience, exploring the complexities of being a cis woman navigating a world where identity, voice, and visibility are under scrutiny — and where remaining neutral is not always a neutral act.

Ruth Ellis was a nightclub hostess who shot and killed her violent upper class lover after a long abusive relationship.  She was executed for the crime in 1955, making her the last woman to be hanged in England. 

As a Director, reviving a show you’ve directed before can be a rare thing these days. To get another bite at the cherry is a gift, but it comes with a challenge, because what do you have to navigate now? Expectations. You’ve been a part of something that people love, helped to make something that has moved and inspired audiences and now you have to recapture the lighting in a bottle.

Being the first benefit-class theatre maker to have a double bill programmed at Park Theatre I’ve been asked to write about the barriers faced by low-socioeconomic creatives. There are monthly articles in The Guardian and The Stage analysing these issues in more detail than I ever could. What I can do, though, is tell you a hugely condensed version of my journey to demystify what it’s taken for me to bring tell me straight and aggy to the stage.

I'm sure I'm not the only woman who feels helpless navigating the world right now. I have moments of empowerment where I feel I can achieve anything, and I'm grateful to be living in the 21st century with freedoms women before me didn't have. I acknowledge my privilege here as a white woman living in the West. Then I see news about the Taliban's latest restrictions on women or the Epstein files, and I come crashing back down with sadness and rage, feeling naive for ever feeling that relief. Is it really 2026? Have we really come as far as we think? Will things ever truly change for us, and how can we learn from the past to inform our future?

Darwin Prakash burst onto the opera scene in 2019, when he made his professional debut in the chorus at Glyndebourne. Five years before that, he didn’t read music and had no formal singing training. The Indian baritone discusses his meteoric career trajectory and singing the role of Guglielmo in English National Opera (ENO)’s forthcoming production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte...