New Earth Theatre 2026 Season
We are thrilled to announce our 2026 season — a year packed with exciting projects and partnerships. Central to our vision this year is our commitment to collaboration and allyship: working across boundaries to make lasting change together.
Our creative programme kicks off in May with Heartwood, our collaboration with Norwich-based curious directive, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and NHS Blood and Transplant. Featuring a majority BESEA cast and creative team, Heartwood asks questions about the edge of human generosity and endurance. The show runs 12-23 May at Curious Directive, Elm Hill. Tickets are sold out but you can check the Norfolk & Norwich Festival website for returns. Then in October we present the world premiere of The Hungry Ghost, a queer horror rom-comby debut playwright Mei Leng Yew produced in association with Bush Theatre. A young woman, caught between the expectations of her Chinese parents and her white girlfriend, unwittingly summons a hungry ghost with insatiable desires of its own. Tickets will go on sale following the Bush Theatre’s full programme announcement this June. Alongside these productions, we will continue to run our immersive James Robson Character Encounter at the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum throughout the year, widening the public view on Chinese-British heritage and its place in ‘British History’ for the 15th season in a row. Our main programme is underpinned by a pipeline of R&Ds and table reads this year in partnership with Zoo Co, Headlong, Shakespeare’s Globe, and the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.
At a time when artist development and freelancer support is shrinking across the sector, we remain committed to BESEA artist development. Throughout 2026, the New Earth Academy will deliver seven courses nationwide, providing free specialist training with our venue partners, The Lowry, HOME Manchester, Factory International, Birmingham Hippodrome, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, York Theatre Royal, and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. The courses offer BESEAs an insight into theatre and an opportunity to hone their skills in areas such as performing, devising, writing and technical theatre. This year features two brand-new programmes, a specialist Writers Academy and our debut partnership in York, alongside the return of our popular Shakespeare Academy. Our academies are complemented by a wraparound programme of continuing professional development and artist support through our BESEA Artist Hubs in London, the Midlands, the North East, and the North West. In each region we will run a programme of workshops, play readings, and networking events, as well as a national programme of artist surgeries and 1-1 mentoring. Building on the success of our Twisted Roots seed commissioning programme last year, we are also partnering with Sheffield Theatres for the Open Works Festival, where we have worked to ringfence four dedicated seed commissions for BESEA artists to present new work.
This year we will continue to be an engine for sector development through strategic conversations and initiatives. We are an Associate Company for the Climate Playwriting Prize 2026, working alongside Shakespeare’s Globe, Fern Culture, and Climate Spring to develop new climate narratives through the prize, with New Earth specifically bringing a climate justice lens to the initiative. We will also work with Pollinate to support global majority artists writing climate musicals. Our collaboration with the Globe continues in October for an R&D sharing and discussion as part of the Shakespeare and Race Festival on October 15th. And we will once again be awarding our Constellation Creatives Bursary, provided by actor Orion Lee. The bursary, which is now in its 14th year, gifts £1,000 to the winning graduate artist, but also–critically–brings the most talented BESEA performance graduates into a live audition panel with casting directors from the National Theatre, RSC, and BBC.
Our 2026 season is supported by the Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Garrick Charitable Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and The Leche Trust–and of course our incredible community of artists and partners. Thank you all for being part of our story; we’re really looking forward to the year ahead!