The Broadway Theatre has collaborated with Lewisham talent Ryan Calais Cameron to run his namesake season, which has provided funding and mentorship for emerging playwrights to see their work evolve from an idea to a fully fledged theatre show.
Cranes, the debut play by Demi Wilson-Smith, is the second showing of the season and will open on 23 September. The writer had never written a play before submitting her work to the Ryan Calais Cameron season.
“Whilst funding is important, having people who can guide you through the hardships of being an artist and to lean on in times of anxiety is something you can’t put a price on,” Wilson-Smith said.
Speaking to The Stage, Cameron said: “The new writing sector is facing a massive crisis and we risk losing an entire generation of vital global-majority working-class voices if we don’t build doors for them to walk through.”
For Justice Ezi, a drama school graduate whose play Last Goal Wins came first in the season and was met with rave reviews, the encouragement from the theatre was transformative.
He explained the show was first written in 2021, and he had taken it to a variety of festivals and fringes, tweaking it each time before submitting it for the Ryan Calais Cameron season.
“Ryan’s whole season is all about ‘how can we help you’; it is the stepping stone we deserve to put Catford and Lewisham on the map,” Ezi said.
Closing the season is Kaleb D’Aguilar, depicting life in 1970s Lewisham with How to Keep Warm in the Winter, a full-circle moment for D’Aguilar, who works part-time at the theatre.
All three playwrights talk about the importance of keeping the art scene in South-East London, but D’Aguilar emphasizes the importance of the community coming out to support local theatre.
He said: “All three plays are from three young people who live in the borough and reflect their lives here. It is important to have that community support, as good as it would be for people from across London to come out, it is primarily for the people of South-East London.”
Lewisham’s Cabinet Lead for Culture, Councillor Rotimi Skyers, is incredibly proud of the partnership the council has built with Ryan Calais Cameron, and hopes that the Broadway Theatre will act as a pipeline for creatives to go on to bigger opportunities.
“As a council we want the arts to be a foundation of the borough, Lewisham has an abundance of culture. The more we invest in our young creatives and our creativity, the more we grow as a culture and the more united we are as a community,” Councillor Skyers said.
Featured image credit: Kake via Flickr
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