Collab Company

Collab Company A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music or book can make a difference. It can change the world.

We are a performing arts company based in the UAE that seeks to empower creative trailblazers and groundbreakers to traverse borders and transcend boundaries by becoming part of our global network of arts practitioners working across three platforms:

co|lab creations is our production platform where we explore the realm of possibility in the creation of events, performances, festivals, competitio

ns, expos and - well - whatever creative ideas begin to take shape from anywhere within our company! co|lab classroom is our education platform where we aim to inspire everyone with a love of learning and a passion for the arts to shape a holistic educational model for the 21st century arts classroom. co|lab collective is our connection platform where we consciously craft an international ensemble who are eager to redefine the performing arts by engaging in global collaborative practices.

agon[noun]the conflict which exists to drive and define the arcs of dramatic characters as with the protagonist, antagon...
24/04/2026

agon
[noun]
the conflict which exists to drive and define the arcs of dramatic characters as with the protagonist, antagonist and deuteragonist; from the Greek 'agon' (struggle)

PUCKSelf-tapes during lockdown (Shakespeare Day)A Midsummer Night's Dream (2021)
24/04/2026

PUCK
Self-tapes during lockdown (Shakespeare Day)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2021)

AGONMy people are the people who cheered when Cap finally summoned Mjolnir, who cried as Sam lifted Frodo onto his shoul...
19/04/2026

AGON
My people are the people who cheered when Cap finally summoned Mjolnir, who cried as Sam lifted Frodo onto his shoulders, who nodded at every encyclopaedic monologue from a kid in Hawkins.

Why do so many stories we love trigger the same emotions in us no matter how many times we revisit them? The answer… is the agon. The conflict which exists to drive and define the arcs of dramatic characters.

The protagonist who is torn between two versions of themselves.
The antagonist who forges others into something more.
The deuteragonist whose journey is the parallel we need to widen our lens.

Steve/Tony.
Frodo/Sam.
Eleven/Vecna.
Didi/Gogo.
Hamilton/Burr.
Chidi/Eleanor.
Hamlet/Horatio.
Holmes/ Watson.
Ezio/Sofia.
Elphaba/Glinda.

The agon is woven between all of them.

All creative communities understand these resonances. We post about traits we admire in the characters of Lord of the Rings. We get quotes from Wicked inked on our skin. We psychologise the works of Shakespeare again and again and again. Why? Because the agon moves us. The arcs we discover and then rediscover in the stories of light over dark, good over evil, right over wrong...

Why then do some in the creative community also:

🧿 remove names and faces from pitch decks so they might gain business from work that was never theirs?
🧿 weaponise logos and hashtags as a way to evidence proxemics?
🧿 ask an arts organisation founded on principled practice to set aside their ethos because it might become an "inconvenience" to uphold their (signed) code of conduct in practice?
🧿 steal teaching resources and present them to impressionable minds who need role models now more than ever?
🧿 DARVO any situation of accountability that relates to safeguarding protocols or ways of working?

How can we continue to call ourselves a community who write, produce, teach, and celebrate the stories we love whilst simultaneously opposing aspects that the agon of these stories demands of us?

I am still working on an answer to that for myself but, in the meantime, Sisyphus keeps pushing that dang boulder up that dang mountain, waiting for his community to move closer to the story it keeps telling others about itself.

FLYING MONKEYSThe flying monkey is a pop psychology concept which has been fascinating to observe and experience in acti...
10/04/2026

FLYING MONKEYS
The flying monkey is a pop psychology concept which has been fascinating to observe and experience in action. Of course, these are only the experiences of one Sisyphus over the course of one decade of making and teaching theatre in the UAE, but 10 years has given me enough of a front row seat to this deeply disturbing phenomenon.

First up are those who carry harm by proxy...

The Wizard of Oz saw them bound by a spell from a Wicked Witch and stripped of their choices. Wicked saw Elphaba commanding them from a place of misguided belief which she then attempts to rectify. The flying monkeys I have observed tend to have aspects of both in them which is to take nothing away from those who are deliberately sycophantic. For a decade it has looked like:

🧿conversational chit chat that evolves into a bizarre blend of intimidation and coercion.

🧿being reprimanded about the unwritten rules that tend to apply only when a Sisyphus stops, turns to the stage left wing, and starts asking questions to Zeus who is hiding backstage.

🧿a front row seat at a production you have worked on for months with the cast and crew. Not to watch -oh no!- but to be seen watching. Not for the show on stage, but for the opportunity to seek out anything that could be used as ammunition (because phoning the Department of Economy and Tourism for a shut down never worked this time)

🧿the friend telling you to move on from your decision to consciously stay away from some spaces – you know, for the everyone's sake since "We should all just get along!"

🧿colleagues who remind (you) every time the topic is brought up (by them) that they are someone to whom none of this has ever happened - the subtext being that their absence of experience is a convincing enough reason for them to continue working with those who harm.

Then there are those who carry harm through proximity. I think it’s because they are also pushing a boulder up a mountain. Their mountain may appear immovable to them. And sometimes, in the exhaustion of that, they do not have the capacity to act against such an infrastructure.

And so Sisyphus continues to strengthen the structure of his own downfall. From inside it.

SISYPHEANYou know the story, right?Some twaza does something stupid that upsets the worst of The Olympians. So Zeus curs...
09/04/2026

SISYPHEAN
You know the story, right?

Some twaza does something stupid that upsets the worst of The Olympians. So Zeus curses him to an eternity pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to get to the top and watch it roll back down, where he must start again and again, forever!

My name isn't Sisyphus and I don’t think I've ever done anything to warrant Zeus’ wrath, but my path has never felt more Sisyphean to me than it does right now.

For months I have contemplated how best to post what I feel compelled to without ruffling too many feathers. Why? Because I have experienced those in both industries who cannot bear to have their feathers ruffled by anyone they deem unworthy; anyone who remains unenthralled by their grandeur or grandstanding; anyone who triggers the shadow in them.

Thus, enter Sisyphus, stage right.
An analogy.

The mountain is a mindset. It operates in classrooms and boardrooms in equal measure. It tells students the arts are not academic despite evidence to the contrary. It arrives in educational frameworks that have not been interrogated in years. It sits in institutions where funding is removed until someone suggests something for musical, visual and multidisciplinary art instead of performance. It closes doors for creatives based on whether they trained in a few specific postcodes in the UK or one specific emirate in the UAE.

The boulder is a decision. It is fighting against gravity until you inevitably lose your footing and are crushed by the weight of a decision made for you (or about you) by those you may even expect it from, but often from those you do not. It is pushing back on such decisions for a decade whether making or teaching theatre in the UAE. It is the incessant write, direct, design, produce, be bolstered, be let down, figure it out, tour, teach, mentor, disrupt, adapt, invoke, care, challenge, try, and try again.

Is it any wonder why my life feels so Sisyphean?

But that is an example of how to focus on the wrong question! Why? Because it centres the self instead of the issue. Ahem!

The right question is...

Who gains what from Sisyphus being crushed under the weight of a boulder and exhausted by the height of a mountain?

JESSMy first professional lead role (Jess)Journeying Home (2011)
08/04/2026

JESS
My first professional lead role (Jess)
Journeying Home (2011)

SKITSOMy first workshopped show (PGHS)Do You See Me Now (2004)
08/04/2026

SKITSO
My first workshopped show (PGHS)
Do You See Me Now (2004)

LUCYMy first lead role (Lucy Pevensie)The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2001)
08/04/2026

LUCY
My first lead role (Lucy Pevensie)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2001)

DISRUPT I worked really, really hard on a talk for a while ago and was devastated to have fallen ill on the day of film...
13/03/2026

DISRUPT
I worked really, really hard on a talk for a while ago and was devastated to have fallen ill on the day of filming. The talk was built upon specific features of my presentation and was informed by some of the ideas discussed by my insightful panelists (Vee, Kaia, Helena and Lauren) thereafter ✨️

One day, at school, while I was musing on my speech format, one of my older students asked me outright:

"What is like to run your own theatre company here, Miss?"

"Umm..."

I was caught by a battle between two ideals.

One, I never lie to my students. Ever. I soften the truth with compassion or, sometimes, a more age appropriate framing. But I will not lie to them.

Two, my role as an educator of the arts is to inspire the next generation to see value and viability in the industry I teach them about every day.

"Umm..."

I took a beat, then a breath, and said:

"Its not that good right now, if I am being honest. It's been a journey of ups and downs over the past few years but, truthfully, it has felt like a lot more downs than ups in quite a few spaces."

They all stared at me.

Then one of them piped up with something that piqued my interest.

"Well, it makes sense that it's so difficult, Miss, because you're doing something that is going against a lot of the things we've been talking about in class."

We had been chatting about hustle culture, about the theatrical community in the UAE feeling somehow manosphere-adjacent at times, about outlandish copyright infringements, about toddler tantrums that people call politics, about a money over morals mindset, about those within this community who are so often sidelined or exploited or tokenised to push a narrative, about how the lack of access to funding and scholarships means that the grey area of theatre will always be found between amateur and import, between event and art.

It was in that moment, as my students sat staring, that the words from my company ethos entered my mind.

Disrupt.
Disrupter.
Disrupting.

And there it was...

The cause of my Sisyphean suffering.
The symptom of my rebellious worldview.

And maybe...
Just maybe...

The solution to the problem?

SCRIPTURIENTIt sounds like it should be a noun.A name.A thing that writers might have called ourselves in a bygone era.B...
28/02/2026

SCRIPTURIENT
It sounds like it should be a noun.
A name.
A thing that writers might have called ourselves in a bygone era.

But it isn't.

It's an adjective.
A descriptor
A thing that is used to express the compulsion to write.

I have been narrating, thinking up and writing down stories since I was a little Lauren. I have been enchanted by performative storytellers, eccentric imagineers and successful writers too.

Gcina Mhlope. JRR Tolkien. Savage Garden. rh sin. Disney. Neil Coppen. Athol Fugard. Sophocles. Shakespeare. Lemn Sissay. The author formerly known as JK Rowling. Michael Jackson. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Johnny Clegg, Jaluka and Savuka. Lin-Manuel Miranda. The list goes ever on...

I find a sense of connection in the flow or the phraseology of books, poems, articles, lyrics, films and plays... but also in the scribbled annotations of a deep thinker thinking in the margins or in the captions that speak of human hardships as expressed by a human hand on social media.

There is always a feeling inside my chest as I experience these things. It is the same feeling every time. It says "Hey, you're not alone in this obsession!" It says "I also love the way that language becomes literature as you reach the end of the sentence!" It says "What are you waiting for?"

And it is whenever that feeling and its subsequent compulsion to write disappears in me that I know something quite central is out of alignment for me.

I have been the anti-scripturient writer in her automaton era recently. Managing to produce, write and even rewrite in that headspace!

✨️ Antigone Retold: The Woza Habibi Tour (2024)
✨️ The Elf in the Gulf (2024)
✨️ Find Another Reason Why - draft script (2024)
✨️ ClueDon't! - rehearsal script (2025)
✨️ Checkmate the Musical (2025)
✨️ The Elf in the Gulf: A CADET Christmas (2025)
✨️ interviews, articles and mentorship
✨️ Creative content for every platform
✨️ Collaborative content for every event

It seems entirely unreal to me when I write it out this way.

Listed. Listless.

And so, as stated previously, the re-alignment processes are in full swing behind the scenes...

Detritus be damned!
Scripturient Lauren anon!

DETRITUSI have been fascinated by moody, often monochromatic, behind the scenes images for as long as I can remember.I s...
20/02/2026

DETRITUS
I have been fascinated by moody, often monochromatic, behind the scenes images for as long as I can remember.

I suspect this may have started when I purchased a Diamond Edition of 'The Little Mermaid' which had an entire second DVD of "the making of" documentaries. I remember sitting enthralled as I watched Howard Ashman's directorial skills at work, at Pat Carroll and Jodi Benson performing as if live but in the recording booth, at Alan Menken's ability to compose the songs I loved through a gentle tinkering at the keys.

And yet, it was always the still of each individual sitting or standing with a very specific look of steely determination on their faces amidst the detritus of the production process that spoke directly to me.

The detritus, more than anything, is the proof.

The proof that some ideas had succeeded.
The proof that many more ideas had failed.
The proof that artistry is difficult at every level within a production.
The proof that people gave everything to make each next offering better than their last.
The proof that work had happened... really happened... y'know?

I sit amidst a load of detritus right now, both personally and professionally. These last two years have been characterised by a heady mix of one part success to two parts failure in multiple areas of my life. The instability of that pattern, the not knowing where or from whom the next punch or payoff was going to come from, has left me feeling quite isolated from myself and therefore from others.

In truth, I have been operating as an automaton of myself for quite a long time now. Quite capable of doing the things that required doing, but with less and less Lauren behind or beyond each act.

This detritus exists all around me. Whether it was wanted or not. Whether it was welcome or not. It exists. And thus the time has come for my own iteration of a behind the scenes image in moody monochrome. An account for accountability's sake! A space for me to collect the scattered remnants of my life and my identity, write about them as I consciously close this chapter, and continue my journey into a new year with detritus that is decidedly either treasure or trash.

It's time...

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Dubai

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