Black Theatre and the Archive: Exploring the Gaps:

Furnace Festival is a week-long celebration of new work, new artists and new partnerships, offering a kaleidoscopic showcase of performances, workshops, conversations and social events.

Taking place at Leeds Playhouse, Quarry Hill Leeds LS2 7UP, the Furance Festival 2022 is hosting a range of events. These events are free, or pay-what-you-can.

Black Theatre and the Archive: Exploring the Gaps will feature Two Wiki workshops and a lunchtime talk.

These workshops will exploring the timeline of Black British theatre history, what traditions have shaped it; where can we find collections of manuscripts; how access to these histories shape what plays are studied, performed and written today. 

It will also discuss how the history of Yorkshire features in these narratives; what stories can we tell of regional impact and touring? How do genre, class and race contribute to absences in the archive, and how can we combat this? 

Lunchtime guest speaker Joe Williams of the Heritage Corner Project and Black History Walks Leeds will talk about Sankofa Yorkshire.

The Wiki workshops will expand and amplify knowledge produced by and about Black theatre makers in the twentieth century. Participants will learn how to create and edit pages to highlight the gaps of Black history in British theatre making.

These sessions will also explore resources that enable better citation justice for BIPOC knowledge producers, and greater access to archive collections documenting Black British histories.

Book the morning workshop

Book the lunchtime talk

Book the afternoon workshop