Three companies are to join Coventry Belgrade Theatre’s Springboard talent development programme for 2019.
Underground Lights, Richard and Rishard, and Maokwo will be the second intake for the scheme which began in 2015. Emerging artists and newly formed performing arts companies are supported in developing their work over three years.
Underground Lights is a newly formed community theatre company working with adults at risk of social exclusion. Since January 2019, the company has been delivering drama workshops to adults experiencing homelessness or mental health difficulties. Funding has come from the Heart of England Community Foundation and the National Lottery.
Richard and Rishard is a collaboration between playwright Richard Walls and actor Rishard Beckett. The pair were first brought together as part of Coventry’s bid to be crowned UK City of Culture in 2021, collaborating on Rishard’s one-man show The Yellow Post-It Notes for the bid launch at the 2016 Coventry Godiva Festival.
In 2018, they showcased their work-in-progress piece Black Magic, which they hope to develop further as part of Springboard.
Maokwo produces, curates, delivers and organises platforms that support creatives from ethnic minority backgrounds to showcase their work and nurture new collaborations with established creatives.
Belgrade Theatre assistant producer Lian Wilkinson said, “we’re really pleased to be welcoming a new cohort of Springboard companies this year to join current Springboard members SHOOT Festival and New English Opera.
“The ideas proposed by Underground Lights, Richard and Rishard and Maokwo are exciting for us as a venue to be supporting, as well as offering us an insight into the creative talent growing in the city. I hope that Springboard will continue to give artists the means to grow their work and progress onto the next step of their careers.”