Since 2012 we have made theatre shows, installations, workshop plans and radio work for pubs, clubs, shopping centres and performance spaces across the UK and the world. In 2016 we retraced a route of the Transatlantic Slave Triangle by Cargo ship and went on to create Salt, which has since toured to four continents and won three awards. In 2017 we were commissioned as part of 1418NOW to begin a major new work looking at radical futures for democracy in the wake of the Suffragettes. And in 2018 we began to write our first mid-scale musical work, bringing together a Hip Hop Icon and the dreams and energy of teenage girls from across the world. We slept a lot in 2019, but came back in 2020 with new dreams about new democracies, and race and gender after the end of the world.
Listed 4th in BBC Front Row’s The 10 Biggest Risks in 21st Century Art (February 2020), salt has since been made into a major award-winning commission for BBC (first broadcast October 2021).
A lot more has happened, and changed, since then; for STL, the country, the world. In 2023 the company joined Arts Council England’s National Portfolio, and our planned programme will deliver political, ambitious art with, for and about those historically marginalised in society. Our focus is Black, people of colour, disabled & working-class people, advocating for better working conditions within our field. We want to put care and wellbeing at the heart of everything we do, and leave our sector better than we found it.
The Company currently consists of Selina Thompson, Toni-Dee Paul, Amanda Roberts, Toni Lewis and Hilary Foster, supported by a team of collaborators and our Board. We advocate for the rights of artists as workers, and better approaches to wellbeing in our industry. We make passionate, rigorous, political work, full of joy, but with a clear focus on those excluded by society at large. We hope our work will always be characterised by ambition and integrity.
Photo Credit: Jana Rumley, taken at Arnolfini Bristol, 2018
Selina Thompson Ltd is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation, which means funding thanks to National Lottery players plays a huge part in supporting our work.
Member of the Independent Theatre Council
the management association representing the independent performing arts sector
Selina Thompson Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee, and registered England and Wales
Company No 10058978
Registered Office: Assay Studios 141 Newhall Street, Birmingham, B3 1SF