Beginning a UK-wide tour later in the year, including a five-night stop at the Royal Albert Hall, Kate Prince, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde’s musical Sylvia, which premiered at the Old Vic in 2023 (receiving four stars from us), charts the activism of Sylvia Pankhurst across a 25-year campaign for women’s rights. Sylvia is partnering with the charity Centenary Action during Women’s History Month to launch a Crowdfunder that offers the chance to win three prizes – to attend the tour launch event in somewhere in London, to sit in on a dress rehearsal at Curve Leicester and to win a pair of tickets to see the musical from a private box at the Royal Albert Hall and attend the after-show party with the cast and crew.
Overseen by Sylvia Pankhurst’s granddaughter Helen, and established in 2018, a hundred years after some women were granted the vote, Centenary Action is a vital coalition of women’s rights organisations still fighting for gender equality today, advocating for change and removing barriers to women’s participation, including selection and cultural biases, caring responsibilities, violence and abuse. In tune with Prince, Cohen and Walde’s version of Sylvia on stage, a role reprised by Sharon Rose in the forthcoming tour, Centenary Action reflects ‘the determination of characters who fight and fight again’ as the Reviews Hub noted in its review.
In the theatre industry alone, enormous barriers remain to greater equality, with fewer women playwrights being commissioned, even fewer being programmed on larger stages, with recognition and awards largely going to men. Every week, there are new stories about the ways in which women in theatre are marginalised, including Equity’s recent research on Women in Theatre, which calls for more recognition for female theatre artists and creatives, noting the ‘motherhood penalty’ hindering career support and development for working parents.
‘Great is the work that remains to be accomplished,’ Sylvia Pankhurst wrote, a statement that remains as true for women in 2026 as it did in 1926, making the new tour of Sylvia a fresh opportunity to bring her persistence to the fore with inspiring and empowering songs that blend together funk, hip hop and garage, including Make Some Noise, the rousing March, Women, March, Suffrajitsu, and Be The Change. Partnering with Centenary Action means those attending the show and who are inspired by its contemporary messaging can make their own contribution to overcoming the systemic, political and cultural barriers that still prevent women’s total equality.
To support the Centenary Action campaign and the chance to win tickets to see Sylvia, visit the Crowdfunder webpage: https://centenaryaction.co.uk/prize-draw
