Produced and presented by The Cockpit, as part of Westminster City Council’s Inside Out Festival
Imagine if nature reclaimed the Church Street Triangle! Come and join local theatre makers and artists to create a world where Church Street goes wild across August.
We’re taking part in Westminster City Council’s Inside Out outdoor arts festival this summer. The festival showcases fun and unique cultural events across the city and best of all, events are free for everybody to enjoy!
For the first three Sundays in August, The Cockpit will be hosting creative making days outside in the Church Street Triangle. They are for everyone of any age to come together and build a temporary art installation, using arts and crafts to make plants, animals and fungi. Each Sunday it will grow and take up more of the space and then be cleared away at the end of the day. On the fourth Sunday, this will culminate in a short physical theatre performance that will take place in the community-made art installation on the triangle.
Making Day 1 - Sunday 2 August - 11:00 am - 4:00 pm at Church Street Triangle (or the foyer of The Cockpit if there is very bad weather)
Making Day 2 - Sunday 9 August - 11:00 am - 4:00 pm at Church Street Triangle (or the foyer of The Cockpit if there is very bad weather)
Making Day 3 - Sunday 16 August - 11:00 am - 4:00 pm at Church Street Triangle (or the foyer of The Cockpit if there is very bad weather)
Performance - Sunday 23 August - 12:00 pm - 12:30pm at Church Street Triangle, no matter the weather!
It's free and you don't need to book a ticket or a place. Just come along any time and join in for as little or as long as you would like!
Ways To Get Involved
- Come along and join in with making the installation.
- Donate craft materials.
- Lend us storage space. We have to clear everything away at the end of each day.
- Lend us chairs. We have some tables but we need more chairs. Do you have any we could borrow on the 2nd, 9th & 16th?
- Display a poster in your window or even a small part of the installation in your window during August.
- Spread the word. Tell someone you think would be interested in the project and want to join in.
Creative Team
Composer - Paula James
Co-producer and Marketing Designer - Chris Lincé
Director and Co-producer - Francesca Tennant
Lead Artist / Set and Costume Designer - Khaoula B. Karaweigh
Lead Facilitator - Sam Haynes
Bios
Francesca Tennant - Director and Co-producer
As a Director: The Dentities (ŻiguŻajg International Arts Festival); We Must Live (Cellar Theatre); Are There Female Gorillas?; Laki in Love (Drayton Arms Theatre); It; Be Mine for Me (Rich Creative/The Cockpit). Rehearsed readings: Graceland (Emily Renée); Late, A Cowboy Song (The Cockpit) Or, (Octagon Theatre Bolton); Oh Town of Little Bethlehem; Strike! (The Playground Theatre).
As a Dramaturg: Compositions and Configurations; Moonbend (McNicol Ballet Collective); New York Voices (The Cockpit); Joy Unspeakable (Ordinary Glory).
Francesca is a director, dramaturg and script reader for venues and competitions such as The Bruntwood Prize. She offers script feedback through The Cockpit. She trained on the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, University of London, as part of which she was resident assistant director at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. She initially trained and worked as a dancer before moving into theatre. She loves moving between forms and working on anything that questions and plays with the role of the audience. As getting enough work as a freelancer is hard, she also works in casting and at The Cockpit as associate producer for Theatre Maker and on reception where you can usually find her watering plants.
(photo credit: Daniel Delia)
Khaoula B. Karaweigh - Lead Artist / Set & Costume Designer
Khaoula B. Karaweigh is a Moroccan artist and set designer based in London. Primarily working through painting, her practice extends into theatre set design and spatial design, creating immersive visual worlds that explore the connections between memory, place and identity. Moving between fine art and storytelling, her work uses humour, satire and playful imagery to examine complex and critical aspects of human experience.
She trained in architecture at the National School of Architecture in Rabat before completing an MA in Painting at the University of the Arts London. Inspired by Moroccan folklore, architecture, inherited traditions and lived experience, she creates layered compositions that explore personal and collective histories through the tension between the familiar, the absurd and the unsettling.
Selected exhibitions include The Shape of Many; The Let Down; The Problem Is, a Human Is Only This Big; Hand-Held; Works of Woolwich; Artopia and Squeezed! and RUIN across the UK, Morocco and Croatia.
Her selected theatre set design projects include I Don’t Want to Imagine the Future with You Anymore and Frostbite at The Union Theatre, The Rise of the Metamorphs; There Was a Lady with an Apple and She Granted Me One Wish and A Christmas Carol at the Etcetera Theatre.
Paula James - Composer
Paula James is a performer, composer, musical director and music supervisor. Her compositions have been performed in shows and concerts throughout the UK, Italy and Norway.
Her theatre credits as a composer and musical director include Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland dir. Matt Hassall (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes dir. Ellie Hurt, The Importance Of Being Earnest dir. Natasha Rickman (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre). As musical director:Friday Company’s Community Takeover dir. Jess Haygarth and Treasure Island dir. Natasha Rickman (Orange Tree Theatre). As composer and performer: Look But You Must Leap (First Draft Theatre), Dead Reckoning [Five Plays] dir. Yaz Al-Shaater (Young Vic). As arranger and performer: Thy Eternal Summer dir. Matt Pinches (Guildford Shakespeare Company). As music supervisor: Blood Wedding dir. Hal Chambers, Dennis Of Penge dir. Ebenezer Bamgboye, Our Town dir. James Yeatman and A Christmas Carol dir. Lucy Betts (Rose Bruford College, Drama School).
As an actor, singer and musician Paula has performed in plays and musicals worldwide. Her recorded credits as a musician and singer include: Goldi-Red and Gingerbread (album by Hiccup Theatre), Bluff (album by Ed Zanders and Matthew Cavendish) and Shelter (Paula’s Debut EP).
(photo credit: Jennie Scott)
Sam Haynes - Lead Facilitator
Multi media artist, facilitator, collaborator
Art in Architecture MA, University of East London
Longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize, photography 2025/2026
Sam Haynes started her practice nearly thirty years ago creating site specific public art installations, engaging local communities with the belief that art has the power to bridge divides within society. The creative process is still all about making connections, within her practice as an artist, facilitator and collaborator. Accessibility lies at the heart of Sam’s work, photographing and making mixed media abstract assemblages and constructed sculpture, referencing architectural space. She has worked in arts facilitation for many years which continues to influence her artistic practice, engaging local, often marginalised communities, working in partnership with charities and public art commissioners.
Chris Lincé - Co-Producer and Marketing Designer
Chris is the co-producer of Hermetic Arts with writer/performer Carrie Thompson, and co-created the shows BADD, Unburied, April, and Anthology (Soho Theatre, VAULT Festival, London Horror Festival, GrimFest, Brighton Horror Fest, Brighton Fringe), plus two online shows, Carbury Gifts and A Spell At Home, With Hester. They are currently in production on their first feature film, Unfounded.
He wrote the short animated film In The Beginning for Flicker Mill (dir. Shaun Clark), was story editor on the feature film SuperBob (dir. Jon Drever) and has directed lots of stand-up comedy, including four shows with Jessica Fostekew and five with Brett Goldstein, as well as directing Goldstein’s play Success Story.
He was co-producer of the live stage performance of The Quatermass Experiment at Alexandra Palace in 2023.
In 2020, he established STAGEFRIGHT FILMS, which creates beautiful bespoke filmed and animated content to complement live productions - producing theatre trailers and video marketing materials, projection design for stage shows, and recording live performances.
He has worked at The Cockpit for ages.
Church Street Goes Wild is supported by Westminster City Council as part of its Inside Out festival. Check out all the other events that are part of Inside Out festival all across Westminster by clicking the button below.
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