We are developing new work for production with emerging and acclaimed writers. See below for details of the plays and playwrights we have commissioned recently.
Merton Odyssey
Six town centres. Six weekends. One borough-wide story.
Commissioned as a flagship project within the borough’s Cultural Impact Award programme (We Are Merton Performance Trail), Merton Odyssey is an ambitious new cycle of six interconnected performances celebrating Merton’s unique cultural identity and heritage.
Loosely inspired by Homer’s epic tale of adventure and returning home, the project explores what ‘home’ means to contemporary Merton across its six distinct town centres: Mitcham, Morden, Pollards Hill, Colliers Wood, Wimbledon, and Raynes Park.
Created by the people of Merton for the people of Merton, each 20-to-30-minute piece will be developed using Attic’s signature Community Dramaturgy model. Local residents will act as co-creators, storytellers, and performers working alongside a professional writer, actor, lead director and guest multidisciplinary artists (spanning theatre, dance, and music) in each location.
Staged in accessible public spaces across six consecutive weekends in Summer 2027, audiences will be invited to a landmark shared cultural experience that celebrates local identity and unites neighbourhoods across the entire borough.
Lie in It by Emma-Louise Howell
A play exploring the housing crisis and particularly the difficulties of ‘Generation Rent’. The play will explore the impact of housing insecurity on identity and mental health. The piece is being developed in three cities, all on the frontline of the housing crisis: London, Lincoln and York.
Emma-Louise Howell is an award-winning writer from East Anglia. Her debut play Patterns, won the Michael Ross Award from RADA before going on to be shortlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Prize. Her second play, I Really Do Think This Will Change Your Life, was selected as the Mercury Theatre’s inaugural Page-to-Stage Original Production and a Pleasance National Partnerships production for Edinburgh Fringe 2024. Labelled as ‘one of our undoubted stars of the future’ (Broadway Baby), Emma has been shortlisted for the Women in Theatre Lab, BBC Writersroom, ITV Original Voices and Stage Innovation Award.
The Dons by Daniel Ward.
A play that follows the fans’ stories behind the rise of Wimbledon AFC – a fan-owned club that went from the bottom of the football pyramid to League One in only 25 years, following the original Wimbledon club being moved to Milton Keynes. Underneath the football, it’s a story about how a community coming together can make things happen.
Daniel Ward is a writer and actor from Merton. A graduate of the NYT and LAMDA, he has performed in theatres all over the country whilst continually writing and honing his artistic voice. This led to his debut play The Canary and the Crow, which opened Edinburgh Fringe 2019 to rousing accolades and sold-out performances. It went on to receive the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence before embarking on a UK tour, which included a run at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and ended 2020 on a high by winning Daniel the George Devine Award.
Daniel also wrote Unlocking Canon’s House for Attic.
How To Be Kind by Sian Owen
A play which explores how to make the world better when all you want to do is burn the world down.
Sian Owen is a graduate of the MA Writing for Performance Programme at Goldsmiths College. Her play Restoration won the Oxford Playhouse New Writing Competition. She has been part of the Sherman Cymru Advanced Writers Group and the Royal Court Studio Group. She has been part of the invitational BBC Writers’ Group-Welsh Voices and was long-listed for the BBC/NTW Wales Writer in Residence Scheme 2019. She is currently on attachment at the National Theatre and under commission for Michael Sheen’s Welsh National Theatre.