Commissioned by the Museum of Croydon as part of Croydon Presents, an exhibition exploring the theatres, performance spaces and people of the borough, this project set out to celebrate the extraordinary diversity of local talent hiding in plain sight.

Theatre and live performance do something that little else can: they invite us to step into perspectives beyond our own. On stage, we encounter lives we haven't lived, questions we haven't asked and emotions we didn't know we carried. We empathise. And in a shared room with strangers, something communal happens: we connect. Not just to the performers, but to each other.

This project moved beyond the stage door. From rehearsals and workshops to quiet backstage preparations and portraits, I wanted to capture both the spectacle and the stillness of performance, the magic that exists before the curtain rises and long after it falls.

Croydon's creative community is vast and deeply rooted. I feel I only scratched the surface and that in itself felt like a discovery. There is so much more here to find, to document, to celebrate. Live performance isn't a luxury. It shapes how we think, how we learn and how we understand what it means to be human.