Playing ON

Performance that shifts perspectives.

Our Mission

Delivering powerful performance rooted in lived experience... helping people share their stories, shift perceptions, and create meaningful social change.

Our Impact

Close-up of a smiling man with dark complexion, wearing a black beanie, yellow shirt, and floral patterned collar.

Drilling Diamonds

Our flagship youth project, working with young people across Tower Hamlets, Lewisham and Newham. Drilling Diamonds will begin work in Greenwich in Autumn.

Two actors perform on stage, with one inside a shopping trolley and the other steering the trolley. The scene is dramatic with theatrical lighting.

Flock

Multi-award winning Lin Coghlan's Flock weaves together the lives of two resilient young people as they face extraordinary challenges.

Two people, a man with glasses and a woman with brown hair, are in a conversation, kneeling on stage, with other people sitting in the background in front of a black curtain.

Raising the Roof

Two men laughing and smiling at a conversation, seated indoors with bookshelves in the background.

A project with care experienced young people, developing stories with fictional characters inspired by real life.

Artistic Licence

Our theatre and film project for those with experienced of the criminal justice system. Currently in partnership with Lewisham Probation, and soon to start at HMP High Down.

Co-creating theatre that matters.

Our News

Featured

Creativity Driving Change: SAFE Taskforce-Funded Work in Newham

The SAFE Taskforce-funded Drilling Diamonds programme is already delivering measurable impact for young people across Newham. As Playing ON’s flagship youth project, the initiative brings together improvised performance, storytelling, and creative writing to help students explore challenging relationships while building community, positive connections, and wellbeing.

Raising the Roof: Run

Over ten weeks, care experienced young people came together online via Zoom to make theatre from the ground up, culminating in a powerful, playful, and honest piece of theatre that reflects the realities, resilience, and potential of young people in and on the edge of care.

Supernova: Spark to Stage

Playwright Alfie O’Sullivan Neill writes with urgency, empathy, and a deep connection to the young people whose stories are so often misunderstood. In this interview, he reflects on his journey from spoken word poetry to playwriting, his work with Playing ON in Newham secondary schools, and how those experiences, alongside his own time in the education system, shaped Supernova.