About RHP

Rafia started her producer career in-house at Derby Theatre in 2017. What followed wasn't the expected path: British subsidised theatre typically encourages producers toward running a building — Senior Producing roles, then executive venue leadership — but Rafia was drawn instead to working with independent companies developing and touring new work. In that time she raised over £1 million for her productions and collaborated with nationally significant organisations including Arts Council England, British Council, and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama — with whom she co-authored the Producing Producers report in 2024, a significant contribution to national conversations about the infrastructure for racialised producers.

That work took her as far as it could. She reached a stagnation point and needed new goalposts — a bigger version of the same ambition, not a different one. Stage One's Bridge The Gap programme opened up the possibility of commercial producing to her, and the West End producer training workshop in 2025 gave her the grounding to act on it. She restructured from a non-profit to a commercial entity the following month, focusing exclusively on work she believes in — artistically and commercially. Both.

In 2026 she secured a spot on Stage One's 50th anniversary "5 at 50" programme — a one-off initiative backing five of the sector's most promising emerging commercial producers nationally — and was named Greater Manchester Young Businesswoman of the Year. Stage One demystified large-scale commercial producing for her, and confirmed it was the model she'd been built for all along.

Rafia is currently in development on RHP's first production.