Backstage
This is where I think out loud.
Backstage is my professional diary — written in public, for an exclusive audience.
These posts are the behind-the-scenes account of building RHP: the decisions, the pivots, the lessons learned in real time. The commercial producing world doesn’t have many people documenting the journey from the inside. I’m one of them.
Read in order or dive into whatever catches your eye.
— Rafia
Who Gets To Invest In Theatre? And what impact does it have?
I didn’t grow up going to the theatre. I didn’t train as a producer. I came through a door that most people don’t know exists — and then I spent years figuring out where it led.
What I know now is this: I am an entrepreneur. I just didn’t have the language for it until recently. I have always backed myself, taken calculated risks, and built something from nothing. I left a stable career in teaching because I knew — instinctively — that it wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I found theatre. I fell in love with it. And I decided I was going to figure out how to make it my life.
Why the charity model might be the biggest threat to your organisation’s future.
Theatre organisations are not short on ideas — but they are short on legal and governance structures capable of letting those ideas scale, sustain, and return value to the people who create them. For years, the sector has pointed to funding cycles, risk‑averse boards, and overstretched teams as the barriers to innovation.
Can ACE Put Art Before Bureaucracy? Reflections on the Hodge Review
My initial response to the summary recommendations was, quite frankly, music to my ears.
At last, an official report has acknowledged what many of us have been saying for years — sometimes quietly, sometimes not so quietly. The system is under strain, fragile, and far too much energy by artists and institutions alike is consumed by bureaucracy rather than by art itself.
Why I’m Done Making Trauma My Business — and Choosing Joy Instead
For most of my producing career, I’ve worked in the subsidised theatre sector — and I’ve been proud to do so. It’s where I learned what kind of work matters to me, what kind of artists I want to champion, and how powerful theatre can be as a space for reckoning and repair.
But somewhere along the way, I began to feel boxed in.
RHP goes commercial.
For too long, I have watched the arts sector struggle. I have seen Black and Brown-led organisations burn out, not be trusted with a fair slice of the funding pie, and disappear off the map altogether. We have become reliant on grants and expected to make great art while navigating an increasingly precarious landscape.
The story so far.
It all started with a coffee in Manchester in the summer of 2023. I was catching up with a senior colleague I met at the start of my career and he asked “So what’s next for you?.” Kind of stumped for an answer, I said “I don’t know but I will think about it and get back to you.” And I did exactly that.