Created as part of New Earth Theatre’s Living Archive, founders of New Earth Theatre, Kwong Loke, Kumiko Mendl, David KS Tse and Tom Wu recount and reminisce on New Earth Theatre’s 30-year history, impact and legacy. Find out more about the journey from our beginnings in 1995 as Yellow Earth Theatre to our identity today, and how we continue to make strides for the British East and Southeast Asian (BESEA) community within the UK theatre industry.

‘The Theatre Landscape in the 1990s for BESEAs’ reflects on the lack of BESEA representation and difficulty of BESEA actors to secure jobs in the 1990s. While there were a few BESEA centric productions, the most progressive sector was actually children’s theatre, who needed to represent the audiences they were playing to.

Filmed on 13 April 2026, at Regent’s University

Featuring: Kwong Loke, Kumiko Mendl, David KS Tse and Tom Wu

Cinematographers: Darius Shu and Curtis Lewis

Producers: Caleb Lee and Tammie Rhee

In loving memory of Veronica Needa