About

What we do

• Co-create original place-based productions in performance, installation, exhibition, experience and film that use combined arts.
• Produce cultural and heritage events and workshops for communities that engage people in creative play. 
• Animate public space, inspiring diverse audiences through creative encounters and story-telling based on the heritage and culture of people and place.
• Connect, train and support UK North West and international emerging and established artists to co-create productions and events with each other and/or communities and young people often in need.
• Nurture a CIC framework that promotes agency, connection and compassion between all its participants.
• Strengthen cultural economy, ecosystem and cohesion in the places we co-create.
• Take care of cultural heritage space.

Through artistic programmes that deliver

• Productions: Play On co-creates original productions and co-productions for public performance.
• Events: Play On produces fun-days, festivals, installations and exhibitions.
• Learning: Play On delivers artistic development and creative workshops.

Background

In 2025 Play On Productions was re-constituted into a CIC from AKarts, that was founded in 2003 by Alexis K Johnson. It was initiated by the coming together of a group of creative people committed to encouraging artistic co-creation between people and place. They founded the CIC in 2025 to explore a new way of working as a group of creatives, that rotate leadership to ensure non-hierarchy, and invite other artists and creative people of all ages to co-produce with us within the field of a CIC. This new chapter has seen Play On productions locate to Southport’s historic Wayfarers Arcade, a heritage space that offers us a base to host and expand our activity. 

Play On productions began as AKarts, a participatory arts organisation based in London. It began its journey co-creating artistic productions and events between young people and elders in the London boroughs, later taking this activity into the southeast, north and internationally. 

Our co-creation process and the combined arts aesthetic has evolving over the past twenty years. Its interdisciplinary and spectacle nature engages even hard-to reach audiences. Plus the stories that are co-created grant people and place visibility.  

Highlights include place-specific productions for City of Westminster’s and London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Cultural Olympiad and Creative Europe’s European Cities of Culture, situated in, including, Tate Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, Institute of Contemporary Arts, and locations in London, Gothenburg, Manchester, Turku, Bad Ischl and Veszprem. Parade sections for Preston Caribbean Carnival and Manchester Day. Plus, artistic programme and events for, for example, Camden Council’s Summer youth programme, British Council’s Middle East-UK Creative Environments programme, UK Cabinet Office young leaders programme, Gothenburg Co 400th jubilee, South Ribble Borough Council community events and Manchester City Council large scale community events that include Manchester Indian Association’s Dashehra Diwali Mela and Manchester St George’s Day Parade.

Our Values

• Agency: everyone holds the authority to direct their own artistic journey. 
• Connection: of place, people, imagination and play.
• Compassion: be considerate of others.

Our Purpose

The CIC’s purpose is to foster co-creation between people and place through artistic play.

The company’s activities provide benefit to

• Artists: UK northwest and international emerging and established inter-disciplinary creative practitioners, including producers, visual artists, performers, film-makers, musicians and technicians.
• Creative People: diverse UK northwest people, community groups, families, young people often in need. 
• Culture and Heritage Audiences: UK northwest people who do not traditionally attend mainstream cultural events or spaces.    

The CIC supports individuals and organisations who support interaction between artists, people, place and audience for global social and artistic purposes. 

The purpose of the CIC is to:

• Promote leadership for innovation, development and learning through co-creation process.
• Promote cultural and heritage collaboration and exchange. 
• Promotes agency, connection and compassion between participants.
• Promote initiatives that preserve and illuminate culture and heritage.
• Run our own projects in accordance with the CIC’s mission, values and purposes.

The CIC benefits the community in the following ways: 

• People are given permission to engage their imagination, play creatively, and share in artistic making and expression.
• Place with permission is made visible through quality arts that inspires belonging, pride and wonder.
• The local creative ecology and economy is strengthened by fostering artistic co-creation: skills, experience and opportunity. 

The CIC is independent, non-partisan and non-religious.

Governance

The committee of member-directors are 

• Alexis K Johnsons, Treasurer, based in Chorley, Lancashire  
• Andrea Burden, based in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire 
• James Johnson, General Secretary, based in Southport, Sefton
• Jannicke Langfeldt, Chair, based in London 
• Kerry Coyne, based in Liverpool 

They form a committee of 5 director-members accountable for the CIC purposes. 

Advisory and strategic support is given to the committee through a network of critical friends, that bring financial, operational, communications and artistic expertise to the committee.

Sustainability

Play On productions is a socially and environmentally responsible CIC, that is committed to sustainable development. That is committed to maximising the positive social and economic impacts of our activities and to reducing and minimising the negative environmental impacts.