Bread takes its name from the revolutionary El Salvadorian poet Roque Dalton’s poem “Como Tú”. Dalton’s enduring vision for “those who struggle for life, love little things, landscape and bread, the poetry of everyone” is at the heart of our work.

Inspired by this radical call to hope, we experiment with fresh ways of storytelling to disrupt narratives of power. We defy traditional boundaries, weave together art forms, and create work that transcends genre, language and geography. Ananya Mishra and Suchitra Sebastian founded Bread Theatre and Film Company together in the summer of 2019.

 

Ananya and Suchitra met in Cambridge during the production of The Djinns of Eidgah, a play by Abhishek Majumdar, about characters caught between worlds in a conflict-torn Kashmir. As the cast broke bread together and endlessly debated the struggles of our characters to resist power, we began to imagine an afterlife to this collective. We created Bread so that more voices could tell more such unheard stories.

We launched Bread at a packed inaugural performance event at The Lab Cambridge, followed by a successful production at the Edinburgh Fringe. Since then, Bread has grown and thrived. Our first chapter in Cambridge - started together with Hannah Shury-Smith, Nusrath Tapadar, Shameera Lin, Zara Ramtohul Akbar and Linda Yu - is now in its third year. A second chapter in London, started by Hannah and Una McKeown together with Ananya and Suchitra, marks a new beginning.