After the success of WELCOME TO GAZA last year, we have created the Fursa Theatre Company, which works within the Hands Up Project, an educational charity connecting children in Palestine with volunteers and other children around the world. We are seeking funding for a four-week London run of the play WELCOME TO GAZA at The Finborough Theatre, which premiered in the UK last year. The funding will cover the costs of the show itself, including properly paying the cast and production team who have previously been involved on a profit-share agreement.

We are also hoping to fund a schools programme alongside the production, in a school local to The Finborough Theatre. With your help, we will make crucial steps towards establishing Fursa Theatre Company as an ongoing, self-sustaining collective.

Thank you for your support!

Our Story

In 2024, a 90-minute play was created by playwright Peter Oswald out of 19 of the HUP plays and verbatim reports from Gaza. The play brings the complexity of life in Gaza before and after October 7th 2023 to life for a UK audience. We contacted original writers of the plays, exiled in Europe and the UK, to put together a company entirely of HUP alumni. We formed a group of actors including 3 of the originators, with others unable to get visas from the UK Home Office. The play toured throughout the UK, including to the Edinburgh Fringe, where it received a 5-star review from the British Theatre Guide.

★★★★★ ‘Welcome to Gaza is the result of that hope created from fifteen plays written by children between 2017 and 6 October 2023 (a shortened version of the usual 19 plays) and confidently performed by six young women, five of whom are Palestinian.’ - British Theatre Guide

Directed by award-winning playwright Peter Oswald, WELCOME TO GAZA tells stories of what life is really like in Gaza and the West Bank, giving an insight into what it’s like to be a child growing up in the midst of a genocide. Some of the young people who have left Palestine perform the plays, which they wrote when they were children in Gaza, in the show.

Our Aims

- Starting with the play WELCOME TO GAZA, to continue its development and sharing it with more audiences on larger stages. With this funding, we will be able to further develop and rerehearse the production based on previous feedback, including funding more ambitious design and technical elements to realise the full potential of the children’s writing and company’s performances.

- To develop a workshop series to be delivered in UK secondary schools to educate young people about prejudice, racism and how theatre can be used as a tool for change

- To create a network of disadvantaged young theatre makers creating opportunities for artistic development

- To create a pathway for alumni of The Hands Up Project to continue to share their stories more widely and create new, ambitious art in the UK

- To expand the existing community of The Hands Up Project participants and create an empowering, supportive and connected group of like-minded creatives.