A group of theatres is to commission two new pieces of work, one with an artist or company from the East Midlands and the other from anywhere else in the UK.
The venues behind the idea are Derby Theatre through its professional artist development programme In Good Company, Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre, Burton-on-Trent’s Brewhouse, Lincolnshire One Venues and Mansfield Old Library.
The commissions are being offered to mid-career theatre makers—artists and companies who are established and have an identity and a strong track record of creating contemporary theatre, have produced two or three shows and preferably toured them outside their region, have worked in partnership with other venues to create previous work and who have the infrastructure and capacity to deliver the project.
In Good Company is looking to support projects including new writing, the devised, physical or spoken word, a project that has gone through a research and development process and is ready to go into production,; a show which is accessible and interesting to a wide and diverse audience, a piece which could tour to studio theatres or small-scale places and a willingness to work with Talking Birds’ A Difference Engine, a new tool for making events and performances accessible to partially-sighted, deaf or hard-of-hearing audience members.
Support could be a £5,500 commission fee, two weeks’ rehearsal and an opportunity to showcase the work at Derby Theatre’s 2018 DEparture Festival.
The deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday 9 July. Shortlisting will take place in the week beginning Monday 10 July, with interviews taking place during the first two week of September.
Further details are available at the Derby Theatre web site.