Tara Theatre Announce 40th Anniversary Festivities

Following a 2016 which saw Tara Arts move into its award-winning new building and Artistic Director Jatinder Verma awarded the MBE, Tara Theatre launch a Spring season featuring an eclectic mix of music, theatre, dance and comedy. 2017 will see Tara celebrate two milestone anniversaries – the 70^th anniversary of India and Pakistan’s independence, which will be marked with 70 events over the course of the year under the banner #tara7070, and Tara’s own 40^th anniversary.

Highlights of the Spring theatre programme include the premiere of Chigger Foot Boys, a new play from Patricia Cumper which looks at the lives of Jamaicans who fought in World War One, drawing on real life events (22 Feb – 11 Mar). The season also includes She Called Me Mother, which stars Cathy Tyson as a homeless woman begging in a London station. It comes to Tara following a successful UK tour in 2015. Poet and performer Inua Ellams will bring his Evening with an Immigrant to Tara Theatre on 24-25 March.

Music highlights will include a one-off evening with Award-winning musician Nitin Sawhney(India and Me, 28 Jan) and an evening of music and poetry exploring the work of celebrated Sufi poet Rumi (Listen to the Reed, 27 Jan). Comedy returns to Tara Theatre in the form of a special evening with showbiz favourite Barry Cryer and his son Bob Cryer (29 Jan).

During Spring, the first Tara #tara7070 events will take place, celebrating the 70^th anniversary of India and Pakistan’s independence from the British Empire. Covering music, theatre, dance and spoken work, 70 events over the course of the year will look at how the Indian sub-continent has shaped Britain’s destiny, as much as Britain shaped modern India and Pakistan’s and illuminate the connections between the three countries. These events are marked in listings using the #Tara7070

“I am delighted some of the most exciting artists and entertainers in Britain today will present our first Spring in the new Tara Theatre. From Nitin Sawhney to Inua Ellams, comic maestro Barry Cryer to new theatre companies Mandala and Strongback to fabulous dance from Natalia Hildner.and the submlime poetry of Rumi, this Spring marks a fitting start to our 40^th year. I look forward to welcoming audiences to evenings of delight and wonder at Tara.” Jatinder Verma

Tara Arts are established as one of the UK’s foremost creators of cross-cultural theatre. Their work, which consists of both new writing and reimagined classics, seeks to make imaginative connections across communities, to help foster a global sensibility from their own locality. The company was founded in 1977 by Artistic Director Jatinder Verma, along with Sunil Saggar, Ovais Kadri, Praveen Bahl & Vijay Shaunak. Tara Theatre, opened in September 2016, has been awarded Project Design of the Year at the London Construction Awards, and has been nominated for both Theatre Building of the year and Sustainability in The Stage awards 2017.