Talawa Theatre Company was set up in 1985 by Yvonne Brewster, Mona Hammond, Carmen Monroe and Inigo Espejel. Their first production was The Black Jacobins by CLR James in 1986, a play about the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, which had not been performed in England for fifty years and never with a complete Black cast. This production was funded by the Greater London Council Race Equality Unit as part of the Black Experience Arts Programme. During the same year Yvonne Brewster directed An Echo in the Bone by Dennis Scott and in 1988 the European Premiere of O Babylon! by Derek Walcott and Galt McDermot.
The company went on to produce works by Oscar Wilde and by William Shakespeare, as well as plays by African and Caribbean writers such as Wole Soyinka and also by new Black British writers. As well as putting on productions Talawa worked to develop new audiences and greater participation in the theatre through the Summer school programme and various workshops and outreach projects. They also developed new writers by putting on script reading events and script writing projects. In 1992 Talawa moved from the Africa Centre in Covent Garden to a residency at the Cochrane Theatre, which allowed them to put on three plays a year. This arrangement ended in 1995 as Talawa embarked on what would become the ten year Capital Project, Talawa's search for a new home for Black Theatre. When the project did not result in a new building, Yvonne Brewster stood down as Director of Talawa.
In 2006 Pat Cumper was appointed as Artistic Director, and she was joined by Deborah Sawyer as Executive Director. The company's current mission statement identifies Talawa as a Black led theatre company that seeks to give voice to Black British experience, to nurture the writers, directors, designers, administrators and marketers of the future and to cultivate Black audiences and audiences for Black work.
From the guide to the Records of Talawa Theatre Company, 1962-2007, (V&A Department of Theatre and Performance)
