Olivier-award-nominated playwright and Sky Arts Award winner Ryan Calais Cameron today announces The Ryan Calais Cameron Season, an ambitious new development and production programme launched in association with Broadway Theatre, Catford. The initiative is designed to champion the next generation of British playwrighting talent at a time when opportunities for emerging creatives are rapidly diminishing.
The programme will provide vital resources including dramaturgical support, financial backing, development space and mentorship to three early-career Black and Global Majority writers based in the borough of Lewisham. Justice Ezi, Demi Wilson-Smith and Kaleb D’Aguilar’s respective plays — Last Goal Wins, Cranes and How to Keep Warm in Winter — will be progressed from early-stage scripts into fully realised productions with 12 performances each in the Broadway Theatre’s Studio. A complete pipeline, from development to staged production.
The three plays have been hand-picked by Ryan Calais Cameron, whose acclaimed credits include For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy and Retrograde. He also has a new play Afronauts opening at The Royal Court in November this year. The Ryan Calais Cameron Season marks a deeply personal milestone. Having grown up in Lewisham with the Broadway Theatre on his doorstep, Ryan alongside Broadway Theatre, seek to dismantle structural barriers and create authentic localised support.
Under Ryan’s direct mentorship the three playwrights will vitally receive a fully funded dedicated production run across the upcoming summer and autumn months and employment for over 23 creatives. The season launches with Last Goal Wins now on sale from 1 – 12 July. Press are invited to the launch night on Friday 3 July at 6pm at Broadway Theatre Bar followed by the press performance of Last Goal Wins by Justice Ezi at 7.30pm.
Ryan Calais Cameron says: “Growing up in Lewisham, the Broadway Theatre was the place that
sparked my creative imagination. To establish this season is a dream come true, but more importantly, it’s a structural necessity. The new writing sector is facing a massive crisis, and we risk losing an entire generation of vital Global Majority working-class voices if we don’t build doors for them to walk through.
“Justice, Demi, and Kaleb are phenomenal talents. What makes their plays so unique is how fiercely they capture universal truths, culture, and deep personal resilience. I’m incredibly proud to provide the resources and mentorship they deserve, and I can’t wait to champion their work as it takes centre stage in Catford.”
The full line-up features:
Last Goal Wins by Justice Ezi (1 – 12 July): A high stakes football drama which follows two footballers competing for a place on the Nigerian national team. Particularly relevant and timely in the run up to the World Cup season and the narrative around belonging in sport. Explores themes around Nigerian football culture, identity, brotherhood and power.
Cranes by writer and performer Demi Wilson-Smith (23 September – 4 October): A moving depiction of the personal cost of activism. Cranes, is Demi’s true story about the suppression of protest, the brutality of the criminal justice system, and the heroes who don’t get commemorated by statues. At least not at first.
How To Keep Warm in Winter by Kaleb D’Aguilar (14 – 25 October): A Caribbean love story set against the adversity of 1970s London. Following Jamaican newlyweds navigating racism and economic hardship, exploring themes of migration, race, economic crisis and family. Kaleb’s writing debut receives its first-ever staging after being long-listed for the prestigious Alfred Fagon Award.
Broadway Theatre’s Principal Producer Carmel O’Connor says: “New writing cannot survive without venues taking risks and a leap of faith. At Broadway Theatre, we are committed to funding and producing new work at scale in a meaningfully way that supports underrepresented writers and gives a voice to untold stories. We are incredibly proud to partner with Ryan, one of our country’s most exciting playwrights on his landmark season which delivers on this promise – bringing powerful and very personal ‘page to stage’ narratives to life through fully realised productions in our Studio theatre.”
“These three plays deserve to be seen by audiences. At a time when others are stepping back, Broadway Theatre is pushing forward and demonstrating what is possible when a venue invests in and commits to their long-term development.”
Cllr Rotimi Skyers – Lewisham’s Cabinet Member for Children, SEND, Youth Empowerment and Culture “The creative industry, particularly theatre, is traditionally gatekept from those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, overlooking the incredible talent that exists in places like Lewisham.
When attending the theatre as a young person, it was unusual to see myself represented or feel that I could be up on stage, a feeling shared by many. On the rare occasions I did feel represented, it filled me with a sense of pride and motivated me to change the narrative, both for myself and my community.”
“That’s why this initiative is so important. We’re proud to be championing the next generation of local playwrights, creating real opportunities and helping turn their ideas into fully realised productions at Broadway.
“Partnering with Ryan Calais Cameron, who grew up in the borough, makes this even more special. He understands first-hand what it means to emerge as a young theatre writer and why access matters.
Creating pathways into the creative industries is a priority for us because we know the talent on our doorstep and we are very proud of it. Programmes like this help ensure that talent is recognised and given the platform it deserves.”
Further information about the playwrights and plays:
Last Goal Wins by Justice Ezi
We follow two young footballers, Victory and Youssef, as they compete for the final spots on the
Nigerian national team. They are both confident that it is finally their time, but a last-minute recruit changes everything and threatens the future of both players. The football trials set the stage for an incisive look at Nigeria. Tackling themes of identity, racism and power within the sport, this drama reflects on why players represent other nations and is shaped by Justice’s own Nigerian-British experience.
Justice Ezi is an Offie-nominated actor, writer, and emerging producer based in London. Alongside acting, he is developing a distinctive voice as an actor-playwright, creating work that explores identity, heritage, masculinity, and community through humour, love, and conflict. Broadway Theatre’s Studio production of Last Goal Wins will be directed by Kalungi Ssebandeke 2023’s JMK Directing Award-winner. He is an Alfred Fagon Award–nominated writer (Assata Taught Me), the winner of the inaugural Passing the Baton commission at The Bush Theatre (2017). Last Goal Wins marks his directing debut at Broadway Theatre.
Cranes by Demi Wilson-Smith
Cranes is Demi’s first autobiographical work, recounting the experience of attending her very first protest, and the life shattering consequences of finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Demi Wilson-Smith is an actor-writer born and bred amidst the colour and chaos of South London, before leaving the big smoke to study English and Creative writing at Nottingham Trent University. She fell in love with the stage whilst volunteering as a writer for a Somali community theatre project, which gave birth to the theatre company Side-Eye (Home, Desperate Times, Dugzi Dayz), of which Demi is a founding member. As an actor, Demi has trained with Identity School of Acting, Middleweek Newton, and Alt-Club with director Toby Clarke.
Her work is drawn from both the personal and the political; stories that explore society’s underbelly, the taboo, questions of power and injustice, and what drives people to exist at the periphery. At their heart, they are stories about community, resilience and discovering hope in the darkest places.
How to Keep Warm in Winter by Kaleb D’Aguilar
1973. London is on the verge of a terribly cold winter with Prime Minister Edward Heath’s announcement of a Three-Day week. Just arrived from Jamaica, Irene joins her childhood sweetheart Everton in London, sharing a tiny room in a house in Peckham, as the two try to adjust to their new life together and navigate a racist new country, unwelcoming to the growing Caribbean population. Socio-political changes in the UK and the fuel crisis exposes the differences between them, and a blossoming new friendship with their landlord David threatens the likelihood of our young couple’s marriage to last through winter.
Kaleb D’Aguilar is a writer and director for film and theatre residing between London and Jamica. His work often explores recurring themes of Blackness, Caribbeanness, gender, sexuality, migration, familial bonds, and the intersectional identities found between these margins. This drama set across the 1970s is about an independent go-getter, depressed drifter and struggling musician, who all try to make something of themselves in London, while trying to hold onto a passion for life, for home and each other. The times are changing, and we’re coming out of the Windrush Generation and entering the Rebel era of Caribbean young people unwilling to “just get on with it”.
