LAB WORKS 2026
The Coronet Theatre and RADA present RADA’s MA Theatre Lab’sLab Works. The week-long project culminates in a series of original ‘theatre-shorts’, enabling artistic development, public visibility, and new networking opportunities for these emerging artists.
RADA’s graduate communityfrom across all 10 years of the MA course will take up residency at the Coronet Theatre sharing their practice and inspiring new ideas for future collaborations. Graduates will also contribute towards a public scratch night of original material, experimenting with a range of ideas, practices and forms.
“The Coronet Theatre’s mission is to support diverse and international artists, platforming unique and experimental practice from across the globe As a leading international theatre, it is our duty to develop emerging talent in this field, giving them the opportunity and visibility to contribute to the global artistic scene. We’re thrilled to continue this collaboration with RADA MA Lab, one of the only courses in London that truly champions experimental, laboratory, practice.”
Anda Winters, Artistic Director,The Coronet Theatre.
“We’re delighted to continue our collaboration with the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill. It is one of the most inspiring and creative performance spaces in the UK and has a history of supporting unique visual theatre from across the world. We hope that this partnership between RADA’s MA Theatre Lab and the Coronet team offers a secure space in which graduates can take risks, exploring collaborative and experimental approaches to performance, in a‘brave’ and playful environment”
Ian Morgan, MA Theatre Lab Course Leader
TUESDAY:
SCRATCH NIGHT
An evening of short, work-in-progress presentations, Scratch Night offers audiences a rare chance to see original ideas in development before they reach h E l f h f d l
THE MIRRORS PIECE
Created and performed by SookKuan Tang and Joshua Aiu
Shifting the narrative weight of Euripides’ The Bacchae from an ideological duel between king and god this forced perspective immersive experience asks viewers to step into the shoes of Agave (King Pentheus’s mother) by transforming a classic political tragedy into an intimate psychological horror.
Historically, Agave spends most of the play off-stage as a reported figure of wild ecstasy, only arriving at the climax to serve as the punchline of divine vengeance. Retelling the story through her eyes attempts to reframe the entire mythology around agency, the terror of fanaticism, and maternal grief.
SHOW ME THE THUMBKA
Devised and performed by Devaki Rajendran and Ranjini Nair
Choreography and Dancer: Devaki Rajendran
Primary academic research by Ranjini Nair
Show me the thumka is a choreographic work-in-process that explores the hip as a site of sexual availability, discipline, and regulation within Indian dance cultures. The project draws on Hindi film songs that repeatedly associate the moving hip (called a thumka) with desire and excess, placing these representations in conversation with the cultivated stillness expected of the hip in Indian classical dance, and how respectability is encoded in the frozen hip Emerging from a chapter of my doctoral thesis on the hips in Indian dance, the work asks how power operates through formal aesthetics and how choreography can expose and reimagine these embodied norms. It asks questions around desire, who is allowed to evoke it, and how the male gaze perpetuates a fantasy of the dancing woman.
C**T ACT
Devised and performed by Anna Kopacek and Lucy Mae Bean
We do what we want. Do you mind?
Content Warnings: Profane language, loud sounds, and yelling
SATURN’S RETURN
Created, written and performed by Rose Klekotko
Performer and dramaturgical collaborator: Tomás Barry
Movement collaborator: Aleksandra Komarnicka
Saturn’s Return is a multidisciplinary solo performance in development, combining theatre, movement, voice and multimedia.
The project began as a personal investigation into the concepts of success and failure, and the psychological threshold of turning thirty. Inspired by the astrological phenomenon known as the Saturn Return – a symbolic period associated with responsibility, endings and transformation the work explores what happens when the version of ourselves we expected to become begins to collapse.
Julia is an actress who’s about to turn thirty She desperately clings to an illusion she’s still 25 and is determined to prove that her dreams are still within reach before the “deadline”. As the pressure of time builds, an unseen voice begins to challenge her, exposing the fantasies and expectations she has built her identity around.
This extract captures the beginning of her confrontation with Saturn: the moment denial slowly starts to crack.
Drawing from my background in acting, movement and my long-standing practice of studying astrology, the project uses live performance, physical theatre, music and an off-stage voice to investigate how these internalised beliefs become embodied Rather than approaching astrology as a belief system, I use it as a dramaturgical framework through which to explore identity, social pressure, ambition, burnout and the transition into adulthood from a female perspective.
This 13-minute scratch presents the opening chapter of the work. We meet the protagonist before the transformation begins, at the moment when the identity she has spent years performing starts to slowly unravel The scratch focuses on establishing the theatrical language of the project and the relationship between the performer, the audience and Saturn’s voice.
BIRDS<BIRDS<BIRDS<
Created and performed by Patti West
“Birds have been on this planet since Archaeopteryx, a hundred and forty million years ago Doesn’t it seem odd that they’d wait all that time to start a war against humanity?” Mrs. Bundy,The Birds, dir. A Hitchcock
One woman. One impossible director. Many uncooperative birds. She was hired to train them.The deadline is impossible, Hitchcock won’t leave her alone, and the birds… the birds answer to no one.
Something is about to break It might be her It might be the world
WIDE AWAKE
Created and Performed by Helen Percival and Genevieve Labuschagne
Wide Awake is a physical theatre work in progress, exploring how emotions affect the body and that if they are left unexplored, have the power to direct the course of our lives.
The piece revolves around a person ’ s exploration of a particular emotion and how it has shaped the course of their life.
Wide Awake is an experimental theatre piece blending movement and storytelling, inspired by the ground-breaking book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the mind body connection and how trauma is stored in the body,
As physical theatre performers, we ’ re fascinated by how we store emotion in our bodies and the ways it can be unlocked through movement. Wide Awake is an exploration of this reflection, blending storytelling, poetry and movement, delving into how our words impact the body and how the body impacts our words
THURSDAY:
LAB RE-WORKS 1
HAPPY SURVIVALIST
Created
and performed by
Oleksandra Barstok
The world is full of traps, sorrow and absurdity. In which everyday life is intertwined with surrealism.
Running time: Approx 30min
Content warnings: Loud sounds, Abstract violence
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
Created and Performed by
Pat Dynowska and Corinne Soland
Guest Appearance by Oscar Rodriguez
Lighting Design by Theodor Spiridon
Sound Design by Oscar Rodriguez
Bodies, spirits and the in-between: welcome to the alchemical workshop where souls are distilled and spirits transmuted. two are hard at work, aware that the abyss lingers. A meeting: blood, salt and water mix until something new emerges – and then, a longing. Is it possible to distil the human experience?
“True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing.” –Hermes Trismegistus, translation by Steele and Singer
Running time: Approx 40 mins
VESTIGES OF A DRY CREEK
Created and Performed by
Montserrat Cuellar Mestas
Sound Design by Rita Horta and Montserrat Cuellar Mestas
With the Support of the Grodman Legacy Program for the Promotion of Artists from Jalisco.
A phantasmagorical journey towards a place of origin: Jalisco, Mexico. Landscapes of a past unknown are reimagined and intertwined with the present: a girl walking back home.
Running time: Approx 40 mins
Content warnings: Contains references to grief, death and generational trauma
FRIDAY: LAB RE-WORKS 2
PAINT THE SKY BLUE
Created and performed by Ethan Bareham, Jack Clark, Georgia Gabrielides and Lucy Laverty
Directed by Florence Carr-Jones
Creative Development by Georgia Gabrielides
Lighting Design by Freya Game
Sound Design by Bili Keogh
With the support of: Lesley Ewen, Dan Sherer, emma +pj, Simon Gleave, and Ramon Ayres and Eygló Belafonte
(Ephemeral Ensemble)
Richard and Grace are hosting Eliot and Hannah for a special Birthday dinner! The four friends discuss life, marriage and children in a calm and pleasant manner before retiring at a respectable hour. No emotions have been dysregulated in the making of this performance.
Running time: Approx 40 minutes
Content warnings: Loud music, strobe lights, violence, abuse, death, animal abuse, pregnancy/childbirth, miscarriage, loud balloon popping.
MÔRE IS MÔRE
Created and Performed by Inge Crafford-Lazarus and Larissa Crafford-Lazarus
Guest appearance: Oleksandra Barstok
Nelia is afraid of just about everything, including the prospect of leaving her house. Enya is a bit prickly, and sees red when her meticulous routines are disturbed. There are things in their past they would rather forget.
Underscored by music from Gershwin, Ravel and Bartok, Môre is Môre takes a playful approach to exploring the unhealthy behavioural patterns that manifest as aftereffects of trauma. More often than not, progress entails setbacks, but when we remember that we are not as alone as we think we are, maybe there’s a little bit of hope that comes with every new tomorrow.
ENTOUCH
Created by: Marianna Fornari
Performed by: Oleksandra Barstok, Federica Ruggieri, Carmine Tiberini, Eleanor Cobb, Maria Shtofa, Juri Thilak, Jonah Buksbaum, Jake Walton, Haylin Cai, Marilou Tamvaki
With the support of: RADA, Jeudi Theatre Company, Ephemeral Ensemble, Stockwell Park Community Centre.
We acknowledge that we exist when we are touched… by emotions, feelings, sensations, and each other. Society often refrains from physical contact, which is yet a vital, deep human need.
Neuroscience and Learning Theories lead the theatre research and practice. Guided by scientific resources, we are exploring what happens withing us when we give and receive touch: how it shapes us, connects us, and awakens us; how important it is, and what it means.
In this performance, physical contact is a central theme, theatrical language and neurologic Stimulus
(Touch in this performance is subject to consent agreement with the audience, always opt-in, clearly signposted, and may be declined at any time without disruption. Touch never refers to sexual or religious aspects)
Running Time: Approx 45 mins
Content Warnings: Depictions of fighting, self-harm, and wounding. Themes of pain, survival, and struggle. Moments of intimacy and affection (containing no sexual content). Sound design featuring war noises, explosions, crying, and gunfire (at moderate volume), along with grunting and shouting and vocalisations of distress. Flashing lights. Nebulised water will be used on stage and towards audience members. Physical touch and interaction between audience members and performers happen in previous consent.
SATURDAY: LAB RE-WORKS 3
PLASTIC FLOWERS
Created and performed by Jack Yearsle
In a world demanding “good vibes only,” what is the cost of perfection?
Plastic Flowers is a gripping solo show that puts our curated lives under a microscope. We meet LEO, a man who is desperately trying to keep it together in a chic up-scale restaurant. His smile may be practiced, but his charm feels hollow, and much of his life seems like a performance. This play is an unflinching look at the pressure to perform happiness and the agonizing gap between a one ʻ s public self and the life we often try to keep hidden.
Running time: Approx 20 Minutes
Content warnings: Loud Noises
LIBERATING: SHE DANCES (IN CHAINS)
Created by Xiaoyao Luo 罗逍瑶 (she/her)
Performed by SHE: Xiaoyao Luo; THEM: Kuba Pawełczak, Wenqi
Yu
Movement Direction by Rebeca Pereira
Original Music by Wenshan Yu
Sound Design by Lois Qi
Lighting Design by Melody Mengyun Liu
Visual Design by Chaoying Lin
Assistant Produced by Inini Xinyi Yin
Marketing and Photography by Ruidi Zhu
Film and Videography by Dana Peiyi Wang
Special thanks to Ian Morgan, Christopher Sivertsen, Lesley Ewen, Suzanne West, Xiangrong Tang and Zhuosi Zhao
LIBERATING: She Dances (in Chains) is a physical theatre performance exploring the female body as a site of memory, discipline and resistance.
Through chains, masks, movement and multilingual text, the piece follows a body trained to move within constraint, and asks what it takes to reclaim freedom when constraint has become a language of survival.
Running time: Approx 50 mins
Content warnings: Contains scenes involving chains, physical restraint, masks, intense movement, suggestive sexual imagery, themes of control, gendered violence and bodily trauma.
SCENES FROM A FALLING WORLD
Created and performed by Emma Yvette Conlon, Will Choy Edelson, Jonah Buksbaum and Tara Kitson
The world is falling, the stars are leaving, the leaves are working overtime. Lovers cling to each other, families break apart, and humanity searches for something to hold onto.
How do we react when we fall? What do we do on the way down?
Running time: Approx 45 mins
Content warnings: TBC
2 0 2 6
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Poetry Coordinator
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Press and Marketing Consultant
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Producing & Marketing Assistant
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Theatre Administrator / PA to the
Artistic Director
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Box Office Assistant
Ivana Dieli
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