About Us

Purple Moon Drama was officially founded in 2016 by Cheryl May Ndione. It is designed to give opportunities to young people that would benefit from quality arts provision. Our aim is to set up young people from marginalised backgrounds for success and to build a fairer arts sector.

2025

The Impact Year

In 2025 we’ve been able to sustain our core programming and employ more creatives to deliver incredible impact. The vision is to create permanent full-times roles and hand over the reins to incredible leaders to continue to grow the organisation and live our values.

2024

The Launch Year

We’ve launched into 2024 with the final sharings from our artist development programme, Project Platform. We’ve also launched The Purple Moon Drama film, which we collaborated with local film school Four Corners to capture the essence of what we do.

We’ve launched a partnership with The Felix Project to provide food banks for families across our drama clubs and can’t wait to launch more exciting new projects later this year.

2023

The Partnership Year

From partnering with the Royal Court and Poplar Union for Women’s History Month to launching our new artist development programme and continuing the tour of ‘The Wedding Speech’, 2023 was one heck of a year for us.

2022

Our Signature Programmes Make A Come Back

We recruit SIX new members to the Digital Youth Board and expand the Operations Team to support the re-emergence of our Signature Programming; Our Summer Holiday Drama Club and our Facilitator Training Programme with support from the Social Enterprise Support Fund. UnLtd & SSE.

We co-produce For The Love Of A Primary Caregiver by Cheryl Ndione for Brixton House Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre with Associate Company Nouveau Riche.

2021

The Return Of Live Events

The Purple Moon Drama Black History Month Scratch Night went up with support from Tower Hamlets Council. We handed over the mic and assembled a brilliant team of young leaders to make it happen. We had a full capacity audience of young people and local people at Poplar Union in East London.

We brought Essentially Black by Digital Youth Board member Naomi Denny to Camden’s People’s Theatre in October 2021. Apple, by Cheryl Ndione, went up at The Pleasance in May 2021.

2020

Pivot To Online Programme Delivery

We set up the Purple Moon Drama Digital Youth Board. Sadly in April 2020, we had to close down our Drama Clubs and Facilitation Programmes and pivoted to online delivery for 16 – 25s only.

We planned a digital employment programme called I Want A Creative Career, and won support from the European Social Fund. We exceeded our proposal targets, securing 8 paid jobs from a cohort of 15.

We delivered a Digital Scratch project for Black History Month.

2019

New Writing Commissions & School Tours

We commissioned one of PMD’s regular participants to write a full-length piece, Jollof Wars, which we toured to schools and took to VAULT Festival in 2020.

Graveyard Gang by Lakesha Arie-Angelo is seen by over 900 young people on tour. The piece focuses on mental health, grief, and friendship from a young perspective. Schools visited were: Central Foundation Girls, E3 (210 pupils) Mulberry UTC, E3 (210 pupils) Swanlea School, E1 (205 pupils) London Alternative Academy, E1 (60 pupils) Poplar Union, E14 (80 pupils), Bow School (202 pupils)