PROJEKT EMPOWER is a unique mentorship programme specifically aimed at supporting migrant theatre makers at the beginning of their UK careers.
We match 10 emerging migrant artists with the country’s most successful migrant theatre makers and empower them to become leading creative change makers of the future.
Applications for PROJEKT EMPOWER 2026 will open April 8
OUR 2026 MENTORS INCLUDE:
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Inua Ellams
Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist and designer. He is a Complete Works poet alumni, and facilitates accessible, enjoyable creative writing for participants of all ages and backgrounds.
His awards include: Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2009, The Liberty Human Rights Award, The Live Canon International Poetry Prize, Magma Poetry Competition, A Black British Theatre Award, The Hay Festival Medal for Poetry, Dora awards for Outstanding Ensemble Performance & Production, and The Alfred Fagon Award 2024.
He has been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Tate Modern, Louis Vuitton, BBC Radio & Television. His plays include ‘Black T-shirt Collection’ (Fuel, China Plate, Warwick Arts Centre) ‘The 14th Tale’ (Fuel, Battersea Arts Centre), ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ (National Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic, BAM, A.R.T, Kennedy Center, The Grand Theatre), ‘Three Sisters’ (National Theatre, Soul Pepper, Obsidian Theatre) and ‘The Half God Of Rainfall’ (Fuel, Kiln, New York Theatre Workshop).
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MyAnna Buring
MyAnna Buring grew up bilingual (English and Swedish) with Swedish parents while being raised in Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman where she attended international schools. She moved to the UK when she was sixteen and has for the last 25 years worked primarily with British production houses. She has featured in independent films such as Ben Wheatley’s Kill List and large studio franchises such as The Twilight Saga. For television she has worked on acclaimed series such as Responder, Ripper Street and Downton Abbey, while on stage she has worked across a variety of theatres such as The Old Vic, Hampstead Theatre, in the West End, and at Theatre 503. While her work has mainly been based in English, she has also acted in Swedish for Norwegian and Swedish TV and film projects. She is a great lover of new writing and strongly believes in the importance of supporting diverse voices within the industry.
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Jordan Fein
Jordan Fein is a London and New York based theatre and opera director.
Theatre includes Broken Glass at The Young Vic Theatre, Into the Woods at The Bridge, Fiddler on the Roof at The Barbican, at Regent's Park Open Air, and on UK and Ireland tour (Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival); Dark Disabled Stories at Public Theater and Bushwick Starr (Obie Award for Best New American Play); Rags Parkland Sings The Songs of The Future at Ars Nova (Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Musical); Co-Director for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! at the Young Vic (Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Musical), and was Associate Director for the 2019 Broadway revival (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical); Director of The Prologue and Associate Director of Cabaret at the Kit-Kat Club, West End and Broadway (Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Musical). Opera includes Dialogues of the Carmelites at Opera Philadelphia, The Marriage of Figaro and The Rape of Lucretia at Curtis Opera Theatre, The Miserly Knight and The Dead City for Bard Summerscape.
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Moi Tran
Moi Tran is a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, cultural worker and educator with a dual practice across Contemporary Art and Design for Live performance.
Her Design in Theatre includes: The Hunger Games (Costume; Runaway, Liongates) Dealer’s Choice, In the Blood (Donmar Warehouse); Moon for the misbegotten; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Costume; Almeida); Why Am I So Single? (Set, West End); The Homecoming (Young Vic); A View from the Bridge (Headlong/ Octagon Theatre, Bolton/ Chichester Festival Theatre/ Rose Theatre Kingston); A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction (Headlong/ Barbican); The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe); Henry V (Headlong/ Shakespeare’s Globe); Baghdaddy; Rare Earth Mettle; White Pearl (Royal Court).
Recent Art includes: Handling act (Ayala Musuem PH); Anagram Flash Mob (Tekstin Talo HKI); 100days (MoArt VN); Sign Chorus (V&A / National Archives UK); Care Chains Love will continue to resonate (Wellcome Collection UK); Reshaping the Collectible (TATE Modern UK).
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Robin Belfield
Robin Belfield is a theatre director, writer and educator and is currently Associate Director for The Unicorn Theatre.
Directing includes: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Unicorn Theatre & The RSC); Anansi the Spider (Unicorn Theatre & Birmingham Repertory Theatre); Twelfth Night or What You Will, Princess Essex (Shakespeare’s Globe); Puss in Boots, Mother Goose (Theatre Royal Winchester); Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Sapho and Phao (The RSC); Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Arabian Nights, The Wind in the Willows, Treasure Island (Watermill Theatre).
Writing/Dramaturgy includes: Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale (Tobacco Factory Theatres Bristol); Puss in Boots, Mother Goose (Theatre Royal Winchester) Romeo and Juliet, 37Plays project (The RSC); Hibiscus Hotel, Dat Bahamian Ting (Yellowtale Theatre, The Bahamas).
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Nadi Kemp-Sayfi
Nadi Kemp-Sayfi is a queer performer and dramaturg from Egypt. They were born in Cairo, and spent much of their upbringing living around the world, from Hungary to Fiji, Oman to Sri Lanka.
Nadi has spent 14 years in the UK working as an actor, movement practitioner, and creative consultant. They joined the Globe Ensemble in 2021 and is now an Associate Artist at Shakespeare’s Globe, as well as an Associate Learning Practitioner at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They are company members of Artists on the Frontline and KIT Theatre.
Acting credits include Cymbeline, The Hakawatis, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeares Globe); Julius Caesar, The Whip, A Museum in Baghdad and King John (RSC); Sherlock Holmes (Regents Park), Macbeth (Donmar Warehouse).
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Amit Lahav
Amit Lahav is the Artistic Director of Gecko. Born in Israel into a mixed Jewish family, Amit grew up between cultures and languages — an experience that has profoundly shaped his artistic voice and his lifelong engagement with questions of identity, home, migration and belonging.
Productions including The Arab and the Jew, The Overcoat, Missing, Institute, The Wedding, Kin and From Here On explore racism, displacement, nationalism, mental health, and the fragile human need to belong. Amit trained as a physical theatre performer and worked with pioneers across dance, visual and physical theatre before establishing Gecko. He has performed in all of Gecko’s productions and continues to lead the company’s creative process as director, writer and choreographer.
Amit is deeply committed to nurturing artists from varied backgrounds and building creative environments where difference is not only welcomed, but essential.
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Joel Tan
Joel Tan is a Singaporean playwright based between London and Singapore.
In Singapore, his plays have been produced by leading theatre companies like Checkpoint Theatre, Wild Rice, and Pangdemonium, and several are available in a collection, Joel Tan Plays Volume 1, published by Checkpoint Theatre.
Recent work in the UK includes: Scenes from a Repatriation (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 2025); No Particular Order (Theatre 503, London, 2022); When The Daffodils (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, 2021); Living Newspaper with the Royal Court Theatre; Overheard, and Augmented Chinatown with Chinese Arts Now.
His play Love in the Time of the Ancients was a finalist for the 2019 Papatango Prize, and No Particular Order was shortlisted for Theatre 503's 2018 Playwriting Award.
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Gabby Wong
Gabby Wong is a Hong Kong–born, UK-based actor and writer working across stage, screen and audio for over 15 years. She is widely known for playing Yuk Je in the Netflix series 1899 and rebel pilot Wona Goban in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Her screen work also includes KAOS (Netflix), Criminal Record (Apple TV+), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Strangers (ITV) and Unprecedented (BBC/Headlong).
Gabby studied Politics at Bath University before training at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, drawn to storytelling as a way of exploring and commenting on political ideas. She has worked extensively in theatre with companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Royal Court Theatre, Kiln Theatre and Theatre Royal Stratford East. Her stage credits include Pericles, Troilus and Cressida, The Jew of Malta, Volpone and Love’s Sacrifice (RSC), Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale (National Theatre), Macbeth and Othello (Shakespeare’s Globe), Shanghai Dolls (Kiln Theatre), Life of Pi (Sheffield Crucible), The Duchess of Malfi (Citizens Theatre), Pah-La and Maryland (Royal Court Theatre) and Doctor Faustus in the West End.
Alongside acting, she is a writer and theatre-maker. She is an alumna of the Royal Court Theatre Writers’ Group and a founding member of Papergang Theatre, a collective created to champion British East and Southeast Asian voices in new writing.
“I want to thank Projekt Europa for giving me the opportunity to be part of EMPOWER - it has been a truly amazing and invaluable experience!”
(PROJEKT EMPOWER mentee)
For more information about previous PROJEKT EMPOWER cohorts, click here!