A Cup of Water and Evening Star was commissioned by SPT as part of a major project working with homeless communities in Portsmouth and Southampton. Over three years, the company worked with participants who had experience of homelessness. Many were women with young children, contradicting the stereotype of the homeless individual as a raggedy man with a dog on a bit of string. From their stories and experiences, A Cup of Water and Evening Star emerged as a tale about dislocation, relocation and the making of temporary families, a handful of individuals united for a brief while until some other crisis sends them spinning apart.
The play became the basis for a new work, A Scattering of Lights, for BBC Radio 3's The Wire series.