Midlands development programme In Good Company has announced its biggest rise in commissioning funding, with a £10,000 fee going to Mansfield-based Unanima Theatre for its show State of Independence.
Unanima is a professionally-led company of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who use theatre to explore themes relevant to all.
State of Independence looks at the lived experience of neurodivergent people and taboo subjects in a way that is a “metaphorical slap in the face”, then a “warm hug that whispers to you to understand and take action”.
Unanima has been awarded the commission for companies who can demonstrate a proven track record of creating contemporary theatre through the development of two or three previous shows. As well as the fee, the company gets a week of preview performances to school audiences at Nottingham’s Nonsuch Studios and a world première at Departure Lounge at Derby Theatre in July.
Tracy Radford, Unanima’s creative producer, said, “all company members have worked so hard to get to this point. This commission is a big deal for Unanima: as a company whose cast is exclusively intellectually disabled and neurodivergent, it sends a clear signal that the voices of and work co-produced by this community are valued within the arts and need to be out there.”
In Good Company has also announced the four artists who will receive a £1,000 bursary from its artist support fund which is awarded twice a year.
They are theatre-maker and storyteller Charis McRoberts with Little Fish, a female coming-of-age story exploring themes of identity and what it means to be both British and Irish; Sarah Kolawole, a spoken-word artist and social worker with Rootless Island Baby; bilingual theatre-maker Tina Hofman with Lucid Interval, a cross-art piece examining shock after a sudden loss; and Nikki Charlesworth, a theatre designer and puppeteer with her piece What Happened to You, an autobiographical approach involving her own experience of growing up with cerebral palsy which “challenges the laws of traditional puppetry”.
The next deadline for the artist support fund is Friday 10 June. Applications can be submitted at the In Good Company web site.