A theatre company making work with children in Ealing.
We have run drama workshops for children since 2019, brought international theatre from diaspora communities to London stages, and now test how families with babies and toddlers get into the arts. Everything we make is free to the families who take part.
What we have made and what is in progress
Creative Roots
A test of a simple idea: that a parent is the most important creative environment a young child has. Twelve Ealing families with children aged 0 to 5 attend six free artist-led workshops, each one paired with a visit to a cultural venue, so that making and going become one habit rather than two.
- Supported by Arts Council England, National Lottery Project Grants — £16,507
- Six Saturday workshops at The Questors Theatre: visual art, photography, theatre, movement, music and circus
- Eleven freelance practitioners, all trained in early years facilitation and safeguarding by Purple Moon Drama before delivery
- Independent evaluation by Notnow Collective, at arm's length from the delivery team
- Outputs: a free methodology toolkit and a Cultural Guide for families, published online and through Ealing Libraries
Water is Life — Daska Theatre
We brought Daska Theatre from Croatia to London and sold out both performances. Most of the audience were Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian families who had never been inside that building before, which is the part we still measure ourselves against.
Saturday drama workshops
Weekly theatre games and storytelling for children aged 5 to 11. Two 75-minute sessions a Saturday, planned midweek, debriefed the same afternoon, and changed the following week on the strength of that debrief. Our Young Advisors Group — currently two children aged 8 and 10 — read the plans and tell us which parts they would refuse to do.
Sound Roots
Whether the Creative Roots method holds up in music, and whether it holds up in a city we do not live in. Two cohorts of ten families take four music strands — voice and opera, electronic production, roots percussion, live band — each paired with a visit to a real music setting: a rehearsal, a recording studio, a community ensemble, a concert hall, a festival.
- Delivered in Nottingham with Young Hustlers, the children's festival produced by The Hustle Collective
- Venues identified include Lakeside Arts, Metronome at Confetti, New Art Exchange, the Royal Opera House and Hanwell Hootie
Ealing Children's Festival
A borough-wide festival for children and families, built with the nurseries, libraries and children's centres we already work through, and designed from the start to include the under-fives that most festival programmes leave out.
What one of our sessions is actually like
We are asked this more often than anything else, usually by a parent deciding whether to come. This is a session for children aged 0 to 5 with a parent or carer alongside them.
The door opens early and there is no fixed start. Mats and cushions are down, the lights are low, and one instrument is already out to be picked up.
Somebody greets each family by name and asks one question: is there anything about noise, light or space we should know about your child today? The answer is written down and handed to the artist before a note is played.
Music is already sounding quietly as families come in, so nobody walks into a silent room. A sound meter sits on the floor and we do not go past 75 decibels. Ear defenders are by the door and offered rather than waited for.
The artist starts with one line or one loop, then the instruments come out. Nothing is passed round a circle, because toddlers cannot wait their turn. Adults are asked to play too. Whatever the children do becomes the material.
The volume drops, tea and fruit come out, and we talk to parents on the floor while the children are still playing rather than after everyone has packed up.
The artist and facilitator are paid for a fifteen-minute debrief and write one page: what we saw, what changes next time. Those pages are what we publish.
Free, and free of booking
Cost is the barrier families name first. Every session and every visit is free, travel to visits is paid, and drop-in strands need no booking.
Parents are participants
Sessions are designed for adult and child together. A parent who makes something alongside their child is the mechanism, not an accompanying adult.
Co-design that is paid for
Our Family Panel of parents is paid, with childcare and travel covered. Unpaid consultation only ever reaches the people who can afford to give their time away.
We publish what did not work
We are funded to test things, which means reporting the strands and venues that failed as carefully as the ones that landed.
The people behind the work
Stage Inn Ltd is a company limited by guarantee, constituted in Ealing on 7 January 2019. Company number 11752818.
Domagoj Dragas
Photographer, videographer and theatre producer. Leads artistic direction, artist relationships and session documentation, and is present at every session we run. Moved to the UK from Croatia in 2018.
Dahna Borojevic
Holds an MA in Creative Producing alongside degrees in English and Comparative Literature. Leads recruitment, partner liaison, venue negotiation, budgets, evaluation coordination and funder reporting.
Practitioners and specialists we work with
- Oscar Simms — music and opera
- Rosie Gibbens — visual art
- Francis Augusto — photography
- Rebel Sparks — theatre for babies
- Emma Zangs — play and movement
- Limitless Circus — accessible circus
- Purple Moon Drama — facilitation and safeguarding training
- Kazzum Arts — child-centred methodology
- Notnow Collective — play theory and evaluation
- Harry Winter — design
Where our families come from
- The Questors Theatre
- Ealing Children's Centres
- Ealing Libraries
- Fennies Nursery
- Hungry Caterpillar Nursery
- Pitshanger Play Centre
- Young Hustlers, Nottingham
How we keep children safe
Our safeguarding policy is held in the name of Stage Inn Ltd and was last reviewed in November 2025. Domagoj Dragas is our designated safeguarding lead and his contact details are in the policy.
Everyone delivering with us holds an enhanced DBS check at the highest level permitted for the role, re-checked at least every three years, and completes safeguarding training before their first session. Every session plan carries a standing safeguarding section covering sightlines to each child, built-in breaks and sensory needs, and each venue we use is risk-assessed in writing before any family attends. There is no lone working with children at any point.
The policy and our risk assessments are available on request.