Tara Theatre to tour Abdul Shayek’s production of Silence in 2024

Tara Theatre have announced that they will tour the late Abdul Shayek’s production of Silence in 2024.

The play will start at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in on 6 April 2024, and then travel to the Curve Theatre Leicester, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and HOME, Manchester.

The play first premiered in 2022 at the Donmar Warehouse to mark 75 years since the Partition of India, and examines the legacy of this brutal moment in history.

Abdul Shayek, former Artistic Director of Tara Theatre, directed the original production and had developed this version for touring at the time of his death in August 2023. Iqbal Khan, Associate Director of Birmingham Rep, and a friend and colleague of Abdul’s, will step in to direct the touring version.

Silence is adapted from the testimonies and stories of people who lived through partition. It is based on Kavita Puri’s acclaimed book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories and written by Sonali Bhattacharyya, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Ishy Din and Alexandra Wood.

Helen Jeffreys, Executive Director and CEO, Tara Theatre, said: “It is a testament to the lasting impact of the work that Abdul made that we are touring Silence. This production is indicative of his values and his creative practice. Silence brings to the stage a multitude of real-life testimonies and experiences; it is a piece of extraordinary communal storytelling brought together by four writers giving voice to what is our shared history. Abdul was working on the tour of Silence only a few months ago, and I know he would be delighted and proud to see this announcement today. We are immensely pleased and grateful to be producing this next iteration of Silence under the stewardship of Iqbal Khan’s direction. Iqbal’s wealth of experience as a director as well as his close personal and professional relationship with Abdul, mean that that production could not be in better hands as we share Silence with audiences across the UK.”

Iqbal Khan, Director of the touring production, said: “I saw a version of this piece at the Donmar and was struck then with the power and ambition of Abdul’s initiative. He was a generous and radical artist, a leader keen to find new ways to embrace the unacknowledged or excluded. His being taken from us is a terrible rupture, both personally and to the new community of artists and audiences he was engaging. It is a great privilege to be asked by Tara Theatre to attempt to continue this work on Silence and make it all he hoped it could be as a production and urgent testimony.”

Casting is to be announced. For the Donmar Warehouse production, casting included Renu Brindle, Sujaya Dasgupta, Nimmi Harasgama, Bhasker Patel, Jay Saighal, Rehan Sheikh and Martin Turner.

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Main photo: Silence at the Donmar Warehouse. Photo by Manuel Harlan