Collab Creations
our production platform
Collab Creations is our production platform which explores the potential of artistry harnessed from across the creative spectrum. We wholeheartedly engage the realm of possibility as we work together to create immersive events, live performances, arts festivals, collaborative competitions and educational expos. Collab Creations is advancing the arts through intentional, innovative and imaginative collaborations which consciously elevate and empower.
the elf in the gulf saga
Written within another new writer mentorship collaboration, The Elf in Gulf is back for its second season in the UAE. Written by director, Lauren Noble, and production manager, Hayley Smith, our next chapter in The Elf in the Gulf saga welcomes our audiences to the CADET program... which is the Christmas Academy and Department of Elvish Training program, of course!
Join Gizmo, Luna, Nova, Dazzle and Glitch who are being put through their paces by Admiral Frost in the newly renovated Dubai headquarters. These five new elves have only got this advent to learn exactly what it takes to be an elf assigned to the families of the UAE... and their mentor elves do seem awfully familiar! Our picnic theatre edition of The Elf in the Gulf returns as a musical theatre experience to kickstart the spirit of the season with Collab Company and your nearest and dearest...
the theatrical experience
Checkmate the Musical transports our audience of all ages down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and straight into a 360° experience with us! Alice begins her latest adventure at The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, where she and the audience interact directly with Lewis Carroll's most beloved characters. Suddenly, Alice and our audience are pulled headlong into another story where the chessboard characters from a different realm begin to clash over their missing muchness. This theatrical experience by Lauren Noble is serving familiar favourites with songs such as Savage Daughter by Ekaterina Shelehova and Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics, not to mention singers like Lady Gaga and even a cheeky Marvel version of Madonna. Each musical moment is brought to life by performances from the metallic black and white Kings, Queens, Bishops, Rooks, Knights and Pawns. This is one Mad Hatter's tea party no one wanted to miss…
another dubai debut
The Elf in the Gulf was conceptualised by Collab Company and written through the creative collaboration between Laura Marino and Lauren Noble. The concept of a fun, festive and entirely original show was the aim, something unique that would appeal to families and friends who were staying in the UAE over the Christmas break and kickstart the season in all the best ways... And that's exactly how we came to join Sparkles, Tinsel, Jingles, Twinkle and Buttons as they embarked on an exciting adventure together. With just 24 days left before Christmas Eve, these five elves showed us that they were responsible for observing their assigned families in the UAE and issuing their final reports for the Naughty and Nice Lists to The North Pole. Supported by a community choir who sing their way through the story alongside the elves, our debut in Dubai was magical...
The Woza Habibi Tour (2024)
from dubai to durban
The Woza Habibi Tour journeyed from Dubai to Durban with the same collaborative, creative, communal synergies we experienced in artistry and education two years prior. The Durban iteration provides us with yet another opportunity to prove the impact of our synergistic model, where implementation strategies happening within one platform are integrated into the creative processes of another, elevating everything and everyone equally throughout every facet from process to performance. The embedding of spaces for skills and knowledge to be shared in our very first, self-funded and cross-continental collaboration cannot be overstated. Our South African iteration of Antigone Retold was set in an imaginary museum called The Elizabeth Sneddon and was bursting with enough pop culture to make your head spin as Calliope and her Dionysian Dancers shone the spotlight on The Seven Devils of Greek Mythology as they contemplated the complicated narrative of Antigone as it unfolded all around them.
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the interactive experience
"Antigone Retold is something I wish I’d done. It was ambitious. Without being alienating. But it was also intellectual. Without being self-conscious. Educational. Without being boring... The theatre scene in Dubai needs more Antigone Retolds to make people sit up and take notice. Of everything theatre can be. And everything theatre can do." ~ Madhurima Ray, theatre writer and critic
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"The production went beyond entertainment – which it also delivered – but it was a way in which various arts came together, where the lines that so often divide the various arts were blurred and where the audience felt noticed and involved. The Dubai cultural scene needs more productions like Antigone Retold where thoughts are provoked and where the conversation continues during the drive back home." ~ Dr Lamya Tawfik, creative collaborator
Checkmate (2021)
winner of best play
THE QUEEN:
Driven to demotion my twin taunts me from across the board,
I move in any direction
Side lined and squandered on black and on white
I am the Queen (powerful, yet overpowered)
I have navigated this board
from the very beginning
Been called Lady, Fers, even Vizier
Every change in roles meant a change in rules
Serving King after King after King after King
Yet I am still most powerful piece in this queendom of squares
(overpowered, yet powerful)
And I know just what to do next...












