An immersive experience, through time and a city…

Conceived by Mojisola Adebayo, Roy Williams and Matthew Xia, and created with a collective of leading Black artists including Bola Agbaje, Dexter Flanders, Vanessa Macauley and XANA.

The Architect asks how we create a blueprint for the future, three decades after a seismic event in British history.  

This celebratory and stirring immersive theatrical experience, taking place on a London bus, explores the lives of Black Londoners, imagines the potential of uninterrupted Black lives, and the hopes, ambitions and dreams that accompany them through performance, sound design, music and spectacle.

The production’s stellar cast is led by Karl Collins (Rockets And Blue Lights, National Theatre) and Llewella Gideon (Mary Seacole, Donmar Warehouse) who play The Architect and The Conductor respectively. The cast also includes Daniel Ward who recently starred in ATC’s hit show Tambo & Bones (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Danielle Kassaraté, Shayde Sinclair (Sleepover, The Bush Theatre); Doreene Blackstock, Omar Austin, Dalumuzi Moyo.

Produced by Actors Touring Company and Greenwich + Docklands Festival, following their award-winning collaboration on Family Tree, and in proud in association with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation.  

ATC Artistic Director Matthew Xia says: “Thirty years ago, the UK was rocked to its very core by the unprovoked racist murder of South London teenager Stephen Lawrence. The ensuing decades became a fight for justice and revealed the extent of institutional racism across the nation. I have gathered a collective of the most brilliant Black theatre artists to respond to this commemorative moment, and as is often the way with such painful events and memories, we want to try to move through the trauma, and the profound loss towards something uplifting and hopeful. We come together in our collective power to imagine an alternative city, designed and inhabited by The Architect, and we invite you to journey with us.”