artsdepot Artist Residency Sharing 2025

Set in a Thames Water office, Bottled follows two colleagues as they navigate their friendship amidst a rapidly shifting political landscape, demonstrating how political pressures leaks into personal spaces. Integrating written text, verbatim interviews, and choreographed movement, the work explores the symbolism of water in all its forms. Bottled captures the complex, challenging and sometimes comedic nature of inter-faith dialogue today.

ABOUT
Hamza Ali is a director and movement practitioner with a background in physical theatre and contemporary performance-making. His directing practice is physically informed, drawing from Laban, performance science, and non-traditional theatre. He holds an MA in Movement: Directing and Teaching from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and training in puppetry, fight and intimacy.

Adi Gortler is a London-based movement director (Royal Court, Jermyn Street, Park Theatre, LAMDA), teacher (LAMDA, RCSSD, Lyric Hammersmith), and director (The Arab-Hebrew Theatre, Haifa International Children’s Festival). Training in London (MFA) and Tel- Aviv (B.Ed), her journey has been one of exploration and amalgamation, drawing from the realms of theatre, performance arts, Yoga, martial arts, and a myriad of physical techniques.

This residency is supported in collaboration with Tsitsit Fringe Festival.

Pretty Poison tells the story of the Jewish immigrants and female entrepreneurs behind the cosmetics trade of Renaissance Italy. Inspired by true stories, it follows two friends who use their inherited knowledge to start a cosmetics business. But when a customer asks for access to their poisonous ingredients to murder her husband, the business takes a darker turn.

Featuring a contemporary score, Pretty Poison is a new musical interrogating the gap between who we are and how we look, alongside ambition, assimilation, and the nature of beauty.

ABOUT
Rachel Bellman is a book writer, lyricist and playwright. Produced work includes These Demons (Theatre503, published by Concord Theatricals), Game Theory (developed by Perfect Pitch, produced in concert at The Lowry), The Dickens Girls (BYMT, New Wolsey Theatre, New Music Theatre Award winner), and So-Called Gen Z (Edinburgh Fringe). Rachel has been part of BML, MMD writers’ lab, Soho Writers’ Lab and Criterion New Writing.

Eden Tredwell is a composer, lyricist and writer working in pop and musical theatre. Credits include Galaxy Train (The Other Palace), The New Kid (Aberdeen Arts Centre), The Canterbury Tales (Half Cut Theatre, UK tour). She is a past winner of the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Award and a member of BML and MMD, and has had pop releases with labels like Universal and Loudkult.

Tanya Truman is a Stage One supported producer a passion for developing new, funny stories with female, and/or Jewish narratives – as well as working on original new musicals. She is currently developing new musical Becoming Nigella, which following its debut at BEAM2023 has had further development showcases at Manchester Jewish Museum, and the Other Palace Studio.

This residency is supported in collaboration with Tsitsit Fringe Festival.

1941. Fascism is a global threat. A young refugee arrives in occupied Shanghai, joining thousands of other displaced Jews. They quickly find common ground with the Chinese locals: a desire to fight back against the forces of oppression. A story of unlikely friendship and surviving unimaginable horror through shared wisdom and humanity.

A work-in-progress sharing of an excerpt of Heim, a new play by Noah Silverstone and Yuxuan Liu about Jewish refugees in China during the Second World War.

ABOUT
Noah Silverstone and Yuxuan Liu are theatre-makers and long-time collaborators whose work focuses on creating intimate and humanitarian stories.

Yuxuan Liu is a theatre director and writer whose work champions queer and international new writing through devising, movement, and music. Noah Silverstone is an actor and theatre-maker who specialises in political and physical theatre. Their recent collaborations include the R&D of a new musical Hermit Crab (supported by Pegasus Theatre, artsdepot, and Cardboard Citizens), Lipstick doesn’t make you pretty (Baron’s Court Theatre), and Caligula and the Sea (VAULT Festival 2023).

This residency is supported in collaboration with Tsitsit Fringe Festival.

Whole is a show about 2 people – one of them is on stage, the other isn’t.

Emma’s been looking for ways to fill the gaping hole her identical twin sister’s death left behind. So, she thought she’d make a show for them. Only it’s proving a little tricky because Emma doesn’t like doing things on her own.

Every night a volunteer from the audience will join Emma on stage to assist her in performing the show.

ABOUT
Emma Spearing is an actor and theatre-maker based in North Essex. She trained at E15 Acting School. Her work uses autobiographical storytelling, ritual and unscripted moments to create a magical, unique and authentic theatrical experience in which difficult conversations can be explored. Her work has been programmed by venues including Arcola, Mercury Theatre, Cambridge Junction and Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Against the backdrop of the Green Movement in Iran, Welsh-Iranian dancer Fara desperately seeks news of her imprisoned cousin Shaparak in Tehran. In the course of her quest, Fara becomes increasingly engrossed in other women’s rights causes and criminal justice cases from Iran, particularly the extraordinary true story of Mahin Qadiri, nicknamed The Agatha Christie Serial Killer Of Iran. The lines between fact, fiction and feverish hallucination begin to blur as Fara is drawn into the same dark Christie-esque fantasy worlds that Mahin herself may have dipped into, even experiencing visitations from Agatha Christie herself.

ABOUT
Roshi Nasehi is a Welsh-born musician and theatre-maker of Iranian heritage with a strong track record in performance, recording, interdisciplinary collaboration, public art and participatory workshops. Her work has received widespread critical acclaim from, among others, The Independent, The Stage, The Quietus and Mixmag who described her as one of the “most singular people working at the moment”. In 2019 she was a vocal soloist in Rutherford and Son at the National Theatre and in 2023 she was Musical Director of Village Idiot at Theatre Royal Stratford directed by Nadia Fall. Commissions include BBC Radio 3 and 4, Southbank Wow and the British Council for whom she presented public sound installations in Kuwait.