Varshini Pichemuthu

Young company leader

Originally from Singapore and having made London her home, Varshini believes that play is essential to our wellbeing and that creativity is our birth right. She is passionate about creating spaces to play and create and using theatre as a platform to address social issues she cares about, through a reflective practice of hope. Varshini is an applied theatre practitioner, performer and spoken word enthusiast, who has worked on various inclusive projects with companies such as Eastside, Theatre for a Change, Polka Theatre. Her projects included working with abandoned and orphaned young girls in India, drama and spoken word residencies, drama with adults with learning difficulties, an interactive radio drama project to combat Vaccine misinformation in Nigeria and Senegal, as well as managing productions such as a cross-collaborative theatre project involving women with refugee backgrounds in London and Lebanon. She was the former Co-Artistic Director of RootPrints Theatre in London and is currently one of the lead practitioners on the Minding the Gap Project at Kiln Theatre, facilitating EAL drama workshops for newly arrived youths to the UK. Varshini is also the Open Space and Community Participation producer at Improbable and is also a visiting lecturer with the Central School of Speech and Drama.