Born and Bread – In Development
If Brighton was a table that stretched out along the sea…
Who sits at the table? What’s on the menu? And what stories are told across the table?
Born and Bread is our new show in development, a new story for the stage all about home, belonging, and identity. We performed it at The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) to a sold-out audience in July 2022. 100% of the audience wanted to see us develop the show into a full production. Our Associate Director Jack Parris is working with BPT’s Dramaturg Lou Cope to rewrite the script. We’re workshopping material at our weekly workshops with cast members. We plan to perform the full production in 2023.
“Just like bread, it (Born and Bread) has taken the raw ingredients of sometimes very raw actors, and brought out unexpected talents in a brilliant way – and it has given each of us a new joy, and a feeling of connectedness in a city that is sometimes very lonely. And there is no greater joy than making other people happy – BPT does all that and more.”
Born and Bread participant
How Born and Bread evolved
The idea for Born and Bread grew from our 2019 People’s Inspiration Meeting where we invited people from across the City to share ideas for new shows. These ideas were explored in our weekly theatre workshops in 2020 before the covid-19 pandemic.
The concept for Born and Bread was developed by Naomi Alexander, Tanushka Marah, and Luan Taylor from these workshops.
Throughout 2022 Jack Parris, our Associate Director led the creative process to develop Born and Bread into a show. We went out and about across the City talking to people and listening to their stories about food, belonging, and identity. We spoke with over 100 people from all parts of Brighton. The script was born out of these stories, written and directed by Jack Parris, alongside our Guest Director Tanushka Marah.
We worked with local artist Sarah Sayeed on the sound design for the show, and Hastings-based artist Ben Pacey on the lighting and set design.
Participants were actively involved in shaping and contributing to every aspect of the production.
The photos below were captured by Rosie Powell at our work-in-progress sharing of Born and Bread at ACCA in July 2022.
Cast & Creative
Jack Parris
Writer and Director
Jack is a performer, theatre-maker, writer and facilitator. Prior to his work with BPT, Jack worked as a teacher, musician and actor and experimental film-maker Egg (2016), The Hex (2017) and Words (2018). Jack retrained in Theatre Laboratory at RADA in 2019 and now his practice focuses on co-creating physical theatre through play using embodied approaches influenced through his time working with David Glass Ensemble, Theatre Re, Peta Lily, Gabrielle Moleta Company and Gecko. Jack currently works with the devising ensemble Kreants, Saksi Bisou and Bunkum, whose recent experimental film Dangling Man was in the official selection at the London International Film Festival and the Montreal Film Festival.
Tanushka Marah
Guest Director
Tanushka was the founder and Artistic Director of Collisions which toured for ten years in theatres and outdoors across the UK and abroad. She was a winner of The Genesis Young Vic Young Director Awards in 2002. Her production of Medea toured international festivals in Cyprus and Albania. Tanushka now works as a freelance director and movement coach and has directed many plays including Dracula, Beauty and the Beast, Macbeth, and Animal Farm. In 2017 she worked with Brighton People’s Theatre as a guest director on Tighten Our Belts. Tanushka runs a youth theatre company Windmill Young Actors, whose production of Berkoff’s Agamemnon won The Outstanding Theatre Award at Brighton Fringe 2017. Find out more about Tanushka here.
Sarah Sayeed
Sound Designer
Sarah Sayeed is a musician, composer, sound designer and writer with over 15 years of experience working collaboratively with a range of artists and organisations.As a musical artist, her practice focuses around contemporary works that are influenced by a plethora of styles and musical traditions. Sarah has created compositions and sound designs across Western classical choral works, Indian and Bengali classical vocals, instrumental pieces and her first love: contemporary jazz, soul and hip hop. Sarah plays instruments tanpura and shruti, and is the lead vocalist in international duet Myth of Her with violin and electronic artist Anne Eltard (Copenhagen, Denmark). Find out more about Sarah here.
Ben Pacey
Lighting and Set Designer
Ben has over 20 years experience of design and lighting design for theatre, dance, devised performance, and galleries/installations designs. He is excited about collaboration, communication, participation, sharing, stories, experiences, and ideas. His work has been seen in theatres, opera houses, tunnels, art galleries, community centres, shopping centres, warehouses, wardrobes, woodland, the internet, and a palace. Find out more about Ben here.
Naomi Alexander
Executive Producer
Naomi started work on Brighton People’s Theatre in 2015 and established it as a Community Interest Company in 2017. She did this because she was fed up with how out of touch theatre often is and wanted to do something to change this. She has a background in both community development and theatre. She has worked for organisations such as the Hangleton and Knoll Project, Locality, Battersea Arts Centre and The Old Vic. She is a 2019/2020 Clore Leadership Fellow for Theatre and a member of Battersea Arts Centre’s Co-creating Change Network.