Why we film

I started filming theatre in 2020, when the work had nowhere to go. Rooms were shut, runs were cancelled, and shows that had taken years to make were seen by almost no one. Recording them was a way of saying this happened, and it mattered. I saw this problem first hand in a few ways. My drama school featured many international students whose family now couldn't come and see the work they had worked to put up.

The rooms have opened again, but the problem hasn't gone away. A new company can spend a year making a show, play it for a few weeks in small rooms at small venues, and then it's gone. The people who'd love it most are often the ones who couldn't be there: family on the other side of the world, a programmer in another country, an audience that simply didn't know it existed. Quelight hopes to give every show the opportunity to be seen beyond an evening's final performance.

I know that distance well, coming from New Zealand, there's a beautiful culture of sharing in the arts. Artists turn up for each other, share rooms, gear and audiences, and treat each other's work as something worth passing on. I carry that with me, and I feel lucky every time I get to sit in a room and watch young artists practise their craft here in London. Some of the best work I've ever seen was made by people most audiences have never heard of. Have you ever tried to describe a show to someone only to be failed by the words that should find you, yet put simply. Words fail.

That's what Quelight is for. We film shows properly, put them where people can find them, and connect artists with audiences internationally. Easily, and again and again. The show stays yours: the rights, the work and the credit all stay with the people who made it. We're here to lift that work up, not to take it over. The platform is designed artist first to keep privacy and access controls all within an artist's easy reach.

Visibility wasn’t a pandemic problem. It's a live one, and we'd like to help fix it.

And rest assured, if you ever have a question about your show, there will always be a human at the other end of your response.