NSDF goes virtual for 2020

Published: 26 March 2020
Reporter: David Chadderton

National Student Drama Festival '20

The National Student Drama Festival will move online for 2020 with the support of artists and speakers including Emma Rice, Mark Ravenhill, Laura Wade and April De Angelis.

The festival was due to run at Curve Leicester from 4–10 April but will now stream online on the same dates for free, with more than 35 online workshops and masterclasses, mentoring sessions for young artists with leading industry professionals, discussion panels and an evening quiz.

NSDF Director James Phillips said, “the virus meant we had to cancel on Monday 16 March, but two days later we managed to relaunch with a huge amount of the Festival’s original content incorporated into the new event.”

Leeds-based Slung Low offered NSDF the money they would have donated as a prize for one of the Festival Awards. Slung Low Artistic Director Alan Lane said, “NSDF is too often an unsung supporter of young and emerging talent in British theatre. That it can carry on in these bewildering and challenging times is a real tribute to the determination and creativity of the festival management.”

Another festival partner, Paines Plough, will run an online night if its Come To Where I'm From project, in which young people write and perform mini plays about their home towns.

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