From 2016 until her death, at the age of 64 after being diagnosed with cancer, Helena Bell was the artistic director of Kali Theatre, a company founded by Rita Wolf and Rukhsana Ahmad in 1991 to encourage writing by south Asian women, and now based at the Albany theatre in Deptford, south London.
Helena believed that all theatre should be political, and she dedicated her life to unearthing stories from writers silenced by the mainstream, whether on account of their class, race, gender or sexuality. At Kali, in 2018, she created the Discovery programme, which sought to “discover” new south Asian women playwrights and produce their work. An open call-out saw writers submit their scripts, four of which were chosen for a script-in-hand performance.
