2016
The Merchant of Venice
ACT’s debut in Denmark and the first public step in the company’s artistic life.
What ACT Does
ACT works across local, regional, and cross-continental contexts, bringing multiple cultures, histories, and voices into dialogue through serious cultural practice.
Productions
ACT creates and presents theatre productions that engage artistic quality, cultural dialogue, and international collaboration.
Artistic Exchange
ACT develops encounters between artists, institutions, and cultural environments across borders through exchange, research, and collaboration.
Partnerships
ACT works with theatres, museums, embassies, universities, cultural platforms, and independent collaborators in the Nordics, Africa, and beyond.
Public Dialogue
Beyond the stage, ACT contributes to wider cultural conversations through public engagement, exchange, and cross-sector encounters.
Current Focus
ACT’s current emphasis is a large-scale literary and immersive cultural initiative expanding the company’s international horizon.
Seven Gothic Tales — The Global Project
A large-scale, multisensory art project reimagining Karen Blixen’s classic debut Seven Gothic Tales (1934) as immersive installations across Denmark, the United States, Tanzania (Zanzibar), and Kenya.
The project’s opening chapter, The Dreamers — From Zanzibar to Milan, transforms Blixen’s tale into an immersive spatial labyrinth and establishes the first movement in a longer sequence translating all seven tales into lived, sensory environments rather than static reading experiences.
Supported in part by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Ministry of Culture.
In partnership with Karen Blixen Museum, Rungstedlund, Denmark and the Consulate General of Denmark in New York.
Selected Works
Over the years, ACT has developed productions and collaborations that reflect its commitment to artistic quality, cultural dialogue, and transnational exchange.
Silenced No More
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf was performed in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa as the creative engine of the Silenced No More project, which reached more than 3,000 people through performance, dialogue, and public engagement.
Open production page →
Miss Julie’s Happy Valley
Michael Omoke’s Miss Julie’s Happy Valley, after August Strindberg, reimagines the classic through colonial Kenya’s Happy Valley world—where class, desire, race, and power collide in a transnational dramatic landscape.
Open production page →
For Colored Girls
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf was performed in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg in Denmark, Helsinki in Finland, and Stockholm in Sweden as the creative engine of the New Nordic Voices project.
Open production page →
An Enemy of the People
Actors from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway came together for the Ballerup, Denmark performance of Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.
Open production page →
The Merchant of Venice
A young Dane, Bassanio, needs a loan of three million kroner so that he can woo Portia, a wealthy Danish heiress. He approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant.
Open production page →Later premium version
ACT Across Time & Place
A transnational journey through productions, platforms, exchanges, and cultural milestones from 2016 to 2025. This premium map–timeline reads ACT through both chronology and geography.
2016
Production
The Merchant of Venice
Copenhagen, Denmark
ACT’s founding-era debut and institutional starting point.
2017
Exchange
Share Experience Workshop + Conference
Malmö / Copenhagen
Early intercultural dialogue and collaborative development across borders.
2017
Production
An Enemy of the People
Ballerup, Denmark
A major Nordic classic brought into renewed public conversation.
2018
Platform
New Nordic Voices
Across the Nordics / Iceland
Expansion of ACT’s cross-Nordic cultural framework, including Icelandic cultural exchange.
2019
Production
For Colored Girls
Helsinki / Frederiksberg / Stockholm
A landmark multinational collaboration across Nordic cities.
2021
Production
Miss Julie’s Happy Valley
Copenhagen / Helsinki
A major reinterpretation linking Nordic text and East African imagination.
2021
Development
Miss Julie’s Out of Africa
Copenhagen / Nairobi
Extension of ACT’s transnational dramatic world-building.
2023
Initiative
Silenced No More
Kenya / Denmark / South Africa
Expanded civic and international cultural engagement through theatre and wider African dialogue.
2024
Platform
Nordic Classics Reimagined
Denmark / New York
ACT’s curatorial and reinterpretive framework grows in international visibility.
2025
Expansion
Seven Gothic Tales: A Literary Return to America
United States
A widening of ACT’s geographic and artistic horizon.
2016
The Merchant of Venice
ACT’s founding-era debut and institutional starting point.
About ACT
Denmark´s transnational theatre company and cultural platform.
ACT: New Nordic Voices was founded by Michael Omoke between 26 June 2014 and 29 March 2015 in collaboration with 30 artists from 21 nationalities, who formed the organisation’s original founding circle.
ACT is a Denmark´s transnational theatre company and cultural platform dedicated to theatre, artistic exchange, and public cultural dialogue across the Nordics, Africa, and beyond. Established to reflect and aesthetically engage cultural diversification through serious artistic work and international collaboration, ACT continues to create productions, partnerships, and encounters that connect multiple cultural traditions and new voices across borders.
Since 2016, ACT has engaged over 150 artists from 46 different nationalities.
View Resident Artists2014–2015Founding period
30Artists in the original founding circle
21Nationalities represented at founding
Nordics · Africa · BeyondTransnational operating horizon
Board Members — Current
ACT’s current board brings together artists, cultural workers, and collaborators whose presence helps sustain the institution’s present life and direction.
Michael Omoke
Founder & Artistic Director
www.michael-omoke.com
Alice Knuth
Vice Chairman
Zach Khadudu
Secretary
Pernille Isadore
Vice-Secretary
Rebecca Langley Jensen
Board Member
Jnr Robinson
Board Member
Dr. Myriam Diatta
Board Member
www.myriamdiatta.com
Emilie Lykke Bisgaard
Board Member
Wanjiku-Victoria Seest
Board Member
Theatre Directors Engaged
A second-tier artistic circle beneath the board, recognising theatre directors who have contributed to ACT’s wider artistic horizon, collaborations, and institutional life.
Current / Engaged
Dr. Cheryl J. Williams
Theatre Director Engaged
George Mungai
Theatre Director Engaged
Anna Maria Blicher Skanborg
Theatre Director Engaged
In Memoriam
Dr. Shirley Basfield
In Memoriam
Partners & Supporters
ACT’s work has been made possible through collaborations with cultural institutions, theatres, embassies, museums, universities, and artistic partners across Denmark, the Nordics, Africa, and beyond.
Work with ACT
Open to collaborations, dialogue, and cultural partnerships.
ACT welcomes dialogue with artists, institutions, presenters, embassies, universities, museums, cultural platforms, and supporters interested in productions, collaborations, and public cultural programming.
Institutional Contact
- Email info@thespians.dk
- Base Copenhagen, Denmark
- Instagram @afro.cosmopolite.thespians
- Facebook ACT on Facebook