Cradle: Stories of Iran, Exile & Belonging

Mandi Riggi & Claudia Vyvyan present a festival of short plays. 8 writers and their teams will rehearse for a week before debuting on stage in a relaxed sharing of Iranian community, culture and creative talent. The festival aims to broaden understanding of Iranian stories beyond the diaspora. 

Each play will include at least one Iranian creative, whether as a writer, director or actor, ensuring the work remains rooted in lived experience and cultural knowledge. Around that, we have built genuinely collaborative creative teams that bring together artists from different backgrounds. The goal is to create a space where Iranian stories become part of a wider cultural conversation. Rather than speaking only to our own community, CRADLE invites artists and audiences from outside that experience to engage with these stories thoughtfully, guided by Iranian collaborators.

For us, that's where theatre is at its most powerful: not reinforcing cultural boundaries but creating meaningful dialogue across them. We don't believe stories should remain inside the communities they originate from. We believe they should travel like we do.