Today we announce the writers selected for our highly anticipated NOVA programme, a groundbreaking initiative championing South Asian playwrights and voices.
Following an extensive shortlisting process, three writers were chosen to develop their original scripts and will receive a commission worth £1,500, mentoring and dramaturgical support, culminating in a final performance of their work at Tara Theatre.
The selected playwrights are afshan d’souza-lodhi, Dilan Tulsiani and Mohammed Barber.
afshan d’souza-lodhi was born in Dubai and forged in Manchester. She is a writer of scripts and poetry. Her work has been performed and translated into numerous languages across the world. afshan has developed screen projects with Sky Studios, BFI, Bluebird Pictures and Compound Productions. afshan has been writer-in-residence for Sky Studios, New Writing North, Royal Exchange Theatre and Warner Bros discovery and was on the BAFTA BFI Flare program.
Dilan Tulsiani is a writer and filmmaker from London and Edinburgh who is interested in visual representations of violence, the distribution of state power and the construction of nationalist histories. He has written for Kiln Theatre (directed by Audrey Sheffield) and has participated in many writing and filmmaking schemes, including Creative England’s filmmaking programme and was accepted onto the Grierson Trusts Doc Lab. Most recently, Dilan has completed his PhD Thesis, Traditions of Dissent, at the University of Edinburgh where he also teaches at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology.
Mohammed Barber is a poet, playwright, and author. He was a member of the inaugural Old Vic Theatre Makers programme (2020), shortlisted for the Box of Tricks Screen/Play Award (2020), writer on attachment with Box of Tricks (2023), and selected for New Writing North’s Global Majority Script Hub (2025). Credits include Frankenstein (Sinew Productions, 2024), Turkey Samosas and Jump Leads in Bear Left (53Two, 2023), and the short story Rose and Lemongrass Tea (Wasafiri, 2021).
Our Associate Director Gavin Joseph comments:
“A huge dose of gratitude and thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to apply for NOVA this year. We were super impressed by the number of incredible ideas and pitches that were presented and absolutely loved reading them all! NOVA is all about expanding the canon of South Asian work by discovering and empowering writers of South Asian heritage to share the stories that they want to tell. It’s nourishing to know that there is such a wealth of talent within the British South Asian community and that our voice within theatre is strong and very much alive.”