- March 2024
Bread Theatre & Film Company in collaboration with FUSE proudly present a reading of Jackie Sibblies Drury's play "We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915".
The play is a comedic dramatization of the largely forgotten Herero and Namaqua genocide which took place in Namibia between 1904 and 1907 when the region was a German colony, after Germany confiscated tribal lands and the Herero people rebelled. The retribution over four years by German soldiers resulted in more than 65,000 deaths. The play deals with the enormity of this story by introducing it through the actors of a "presentation" which is intended to tell the story, and shows how the various players respond to the gruesome facts during first rehearsal.
- February–March 2024
Tell all the aunties and uncles (even the ones that you've never heard of): Second Generation is back!
We're here again with the fifth iteration of the student-written sketch show, introducing new BME faces to the comedy scene. Come join us for a night that's bringing the heat and humor to the ADC stage for another year!
From your massive extended family mischief to watching hard-boiled eggs take over brunch, Second Generation: As Gen Z become Aunties promises to be a night of fun, nostalgic third world problems and everything nice.
- February 2024
For four evenings this term, CUMTS host a night where people can come along and sing a musical theatre song for a smaller audience in a less intimidating venue (the ADC bar). The atmosphere is always friendly and uplifting, and the performances are always of a top quality.
The most wonderful thing about these shows is that the more intimate setting allows for those less confident performers to feel more comfortable in their singing and eventually move onto principal roles in bigger shows. You never know, any Bar Night participant might just go on to be the next big star of the stage! Not only that, but also the range of performers means that there is always a range of songs and dynamics to fit every audience member's needs. Whether you're into comedy or you're a hopeless romantic, there'll be something for you!
For the third bar night of the term, in line with our goals to diversify the musical theatre scene and increase accessibility, CUMTS are working in collaboration with Bread Theatre & Film Company to bring you a Bar Night made up entirely BME performers who will be singing all of their favourite songs from musical theatre.
It's going to be an amazing night so please don't miss out! Buy your tickets now!
- February 2024
What if you code-switch so hard
That you just switch?
That it just becomes the code?
What do you get when you put a Black-British Caribbean working-class woman in a predominantly white institution that seems to be praying on her downfall?
An identity crisis, that’s what.
‘Blackboard’ follows Adina, a headstrong, politically-minded 18-year-old starting her first term at the prestigious Fawcett institute, as she struggles to reconcile her attendance there with her identity. Watch as she attempts to navigate academia, friendship, love, and what seems to be an endless sea of microaggressions while the judging voices of her friends, her melodramatic inner-voice, and the enigmatic Black Council echo.
Will she crumble under the unbearable weight of impostor syndrome and ignorance? Will she remain true to her values, keeping her ‘Black Card’? And what’s up with the mysterious blackboard that seems to track her every mistake?
- February 2024
Liminal Space is Dominika Wiatrowska’s (almost) one-woman show about growing up in Poland, learning English as a second language and moving to the UK alone at the age of sixteen. Join her at the Corpus Playroom for an hour of storytelling, dance, and celebration of Slavic culture.
Learn answers to your burning questions, including: Which city's statue of Jesus reaches higher than that of Rio de Janeiro? How could we redefine the word 'prolific'? And how does it feel like to live life in a Liminal Space?
- February 2024
Reviews
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"You'll be kicking yourself if you don't watch it. It's courageous, outrageous, and unlike anything you'll ever watch" - Salma Salifu for The Tab
"This is not just a well-produced, well-directed, well-acted play, but one that has emotional power and is incredibly current" - Evan Grandidge de Paz for The Tab
https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2024/02/14/review-fairview-174714
"Chen and Bisiriyu have directed a revolutionary piece of art [...] It's productions like these [...] that can spur real tangible change" - Tirza Sey for The Cambridge Student https://www.thecambridgestudent.co.uk/culture/fairview-review-a-masterclass-into-the-power-of-observation
"Fairview changes what it means to watch theatre" - Alice Mainwood for Varsity https://www.varsity.co.uk/theatre/27095
About the show
I’ve been trying to talk to You.
This whole time.
Have you heard me?
The Frasier family is gearing up for Grandma's birthday, and Beverly needs this dinner to be perfect. But, the silverware's wrong, Jasmine is drinking, Dayton isn't helping, Keisha is being a typical teenager, and Tyrone might not show up at all. As Beverly's hostess neurosis begins to get the better of her while her family acts like a family, Keisha's adolescent malaise starts to seem like maybe it could be something else.
Hailed by critics as "astoundingly smart and riveting", "dazzling and ruthless", and "unforgettable", this Pulitzer-prize-winning play invites audiences to question and process the act of watching. What happens if you do?
- January 2024
Life is brutal to the best of us, but some more so than others. Join former Pointless contestant and Cambridge Footlight Diya Shah in her debut stand-up comedy show, as she takes you through the highlights and lowlights of her life so far and explores whether it’s better to laugh or just cry as the world throws endless character-building events her way. Don’t miss this one night only opportunity to help her decide just how much the universe conspires against her – whether you end up laughing with her or at her, she doesn’t mind too much.
- February 2023
- November 2022
Got a light?
Ashtray is a play about those little interactions in the smoking areas of queer bars. Whether it's the fleeting compliment, a quick snog, or a conversation which makes you a new friend for life. In the show, we follow three different stories of people who love and fight out in the cold.
There's something for everyone here in the piece of new student writing which uses the space of the smoking area to interrogate desirability politics, gentrification and more, but also to tell very human stories which we can all connect to.
- November 2022
The stories follows four people of colour, unconnected in all ways except for their melanin. We watch them reveal their innermost struggles and joys to a chorus and see how they are welcomed but occasionally shunned by their own.
It is a celebration and warning about the tensions that define black culture. These stories are personal and intimate markers about the Black Women. It is infused with movement that breathes life into the play.
- May 2022
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly was a glorified story about an American navy boy in Japan, failing his oriental love for his soon-to-be wife, Butterfly.
In an alternative universe of 1960s China, amidst the rise of the cultural revolution, Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat newly tasked with high-profile intelligence, falls in love with a mystical Beijing Opera singer, Song Liling, in his attempts to escape the expatriate circles. Restraining physical contact, Song cites Confucian modesty, but Rene is dissatisfied — he must create his fantasies — of Song, of the Orient, and even of his motherland, France, to live through the next two decades.
Welfare form: https://forms.gle/pwr3iBmbom1Rrk8a6
- May 2022
The Chair traces the key transitions in a Singaporean family’s ancestry, observing the evolution of a bloodline from rough immigrant labourers to educated businessmen and women. The members of the family gain affluence, survive war, and fight among themselves, with a chair being passed from generation to generation, witnessing it all. The importance of this story lies in its characters and how they are portrayed, the nuance of Singaporean behaviours and relationships, and the shared history of the nation. This show is meant to provide an insight into what makes Singapore and its people the way it is.
- March 2022
Second Generations: Ice-cream Tubs and Tupperware - a night full of spicy surprises!
Tell your parents you’re in the library and join us in the third space, where cultures can clash and aunties are on the lash. Introducing the freshest comedians of colour on the block, this sketch show will make you laugh harder than a burnt roti. Brought to you by Bread, the company behind Second Generation and Second Generation: Integrated (the titles are getting progressively more snappy, I suppose).
- June 2021
‘The Trouble With Today’s Women’ is a verbatim piece of devised theatre. The show title takes inspiration from Sudha Buchar’s ‘The Trouble With Asian Men’. With performers and collaborators in different geographical locations, the show explores the experiences of women of colour in the modern world and grapples with the dissonance that they face navigating their personal lives. This production will explore pluralities of positions instead of a single meta-narrative, through the authentic voices of performers that will navigate themes of fragmented identity. Developed through workshops and interviews, personal stories on various themes will be adapted for a multi-media performance.
- March 2020
Three times a term, we host a night where people can come along and sing a musical theatre song for a smaller audience in a less intimidating venue (the ADC bar). The atmosphere is always friendly and uplifting, and the performances are always of a top quality.
The most wonderful thing about these shows is that the more intimate setting allows for those less confident performers to feel more comfortable in their singing and eventually move onto principal roles in bigger shows. You never know, any Bar Night participant might just go on to be the next big star of the stage! Not only that, but also the range of performers means that there is always a range of songs and dynamics to fit every audience member's needs. Whether you're into comedy or you're a hopeless romantic, there'll be something for you!
For the last one of the term, CUMTS are working in collaboration with Bread to bring you a Bar Night with entirely BME performers who will be singing all of their favourite songs from musical theatre. It going to be an amazing night so please don't miss out! Buy your tickets now!
- February 2020
On the eve of Singapore’s National Day in 1988, 3 people are killed along the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE), Singapore’s oldest expressway which cuts through the heart of the country.
An interrogator has 60 minutes to question James, whose script, ‘PIE’ foretold these 3 deaths. Somehow surviving a car accident along the PIE that killed both his parents just moments after he was born, James grew up to become an unsuccessful playwright who now faces accusations of murder.
As the fragmented story of what ‘actually’ took place unfolds, the line between the ‘real’ and the ‘official’ narratives blurs, as James is forced to confront an interrogator intent on writing her own script - that James is a Communist conspirator who masterminded these deaths to ignite widespread dissent. Set against the backdrop of the global Cold War and the 1987 ‘Marxist Conspiracy’ in Singapore, Pan-Island Expressway promises to be a riveting comedy, political drama and whodunit mystery - all in one play.
- February 2020
Deptford, 1982: unemployment abounds and the 1981 Brixton race riots are fresh in everyone’s memories. Caught in the midst of these racial divides are Chima and Onochie: two mixed-race brothers, sons of an Irish mother and a Nigerian father. Finally returning home from prison after he was blamed for the death of a white girl, Chima is horrified to find out that his younger brother, Onochie, has become a skinhead who no longer thinks of himself as black. As brutal justice seeks Chima out, Onochie must decide whether he will side with the community he’s tried so hard to belong to, or stand by the flesh and blood he barely knows.
- November 2019
- October 2019
“You need a name that expresses a Christian faith - Mary- mother of Jesus - is the most blessed name - but I just named another girl that this afternoon, ahh, there is Ruth - but I hate names of monosyllables so - ESTER! Yes, that is it, that is your name. Ester, she was a woman of great, great courage, saved her people in fact, second only to the Virgin Mary in Holy women in my opinion. And you look like one - indeed you do, you do.”
It’s 1896 in Rhodesia and Jekesai has just been given her new, Catholic name. Chilford, the only black Roman Catholic teacher in the region, has decided she’ll now be known as Ester, wear European clothing and speak only in English. She’s torn away from everything that she knows by her fellow African who earnestly believes the promises of the White man.
