Photo: Joseph Lynn
Arts and culture plays a crucial role in society. The power to experience something and to feel connected has the potential to bring communities together, expand on different view points and create empathy which can help widen our sense of the world.
Having established a career in the arts, Prema felt passionately about the need to create a level playing field to enable people from all backgrounds to be involved in creating work, and used her lived experience to inspire change within the workplace.
Driven by her father arriving to the UK at the age of sixteen, and his experience of employment structures, she understood how some people were prevented from reaching their full potential. As a result of her father’s experience, her own personal journey and the barriers she had to overcame to build her career, she made a promise to use her lived experience and position in the sector to advocate for the need to actively create safe and inclusive workforces.
As Founder of Stage Sight, she gained the support of over 150 organisations within the sector to deliver Stage Sight’s mission to create an off-stage workforce that is more reflective of our society today, inclusive of ethnicity, class and disability. In January 2022, she handed over Stage Sight to a new leadership team. Prema regularly speaks at events such as the Theatre & Touring Symposium presented by UK Theatre and Society of London Theatre (SOLT) and Clore Leadership.
“It takes a whole team to put on a show – from the front of house staff, to designers, lighting engineers and actors – which is why it is so important that our theatres have a workforce that represents the diversity of our city. These exciting and life-changing career opportunities must be open to people from all backgrounds.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture
I want to congratulate Stage Sight in driving forward diversity and representation in the theatre workforce in London and across the country – and I urge the creative sector as a whole to follow their example and increase access to these rewarding careers.”
and the Creative Industries