Children and young people’s theatre company Theatre Hullabaloo, based in Darlington, is working in partnership with Newcastle’s Northern Stage, Live Theatre and Dance City to offer three new commissions to artists based in the north east who have an interest in developing theatre and dance theatre for young audiences.
Writer Susan Mulholland will be working at Live Theatre to look at "what it means to be normal" and will work with children aged 7 to 11. She has written several Christmas plays for the under 6s at Northern Stage.
"I’m delighted about this commission and the opportunity to work with Theatre Hullabaloo and Live Theatre," she said. "This is a new age group for me and a new way of working so it is exciting and scary in equal measure; the perfect environment for making work!"
Mulholland has been writing plays for very young children for eight years, including, most recently, The Christmas Grump and Tallest Tales from the Furthest Forest at Northern Stage. She also works with a range of companies in devised projects as a writer and dramaturge.
The Theatre Hullabaloo commission comes at an exciting time for Live Theatre as the company expands its work for younger audiences, including the opening of the Children and Young People’s Writing Centre in 2016.
Dance City and Theatre Hullabaloo will work with dance practitioner Holly Irving who will be looking at how to bring out darker elements in fairy tales using hip hop and break dance. Made in collaboration with break dancer Jackson Watson, the new piece will weave together characters from traditional fairy tales to make situations relevant to issues children face today.
Since graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2008, she has worked internationally with Freshmess, Vivian Wood (DV8) and Dora Frankel Dance. She specialises in making work which fuses contemporary dance, Hip Hop styles and theatre. She also runs workshops in hospitals, mental health institutions and homeless organisations prisons.
"I am thrilled to receive the commission," she said, "and have the opportunity to develop my work under the mentoring of Theatre Hullabaloo. It's brilliant to meet like-minded artists who share the love in creating new and exciting work."
The third commission sees Northern Stage and Theatre Hullabaloo work with artist Laura Bridges who will explore the fantastical world of night-time dreaming and encouraging the value of going to sleep for ages 2 to 4. She plans to work with families to look at their bedtime routines to help develop the piece.
Bridges is a theatre director, producer and facilitator. Her directing work includes new writing and devising projects (Live Theatre, ARC Stockton, Camden Fringe Festival, LOST, New Zealand Fringe Festival), and assisting (The Wrestling School, The Garden Opera Company). With her own company, Seadog Theatre Company, she has made two pieces with another in development. She is also a regular facilitator at Seven Stories: National Centre for Children's Books.
She said, "I'm excited to develop a piece with children at heart of the process. It will be brilliant to collaborate with Theatre Hullabaloo and Northern Stage, both of whom I admire and have wanted to get more involved with."
All three commissions will be co-mentored by the host venue and Theatre Hullabaloo, who will work with each artist to structure a child-centred development process placing young people as creative collaborators. In addition, a professional development package will be curated by Theatre Hullabaloo for each artist to include sector specialist mentoring, festival visits, workshops and master classes, enabling the artist to gain real insight into their target audience.
All three commissions will be presented at a scratch performance on 22 October 2015 during Theatre Hullabaloo’s TakeOff Festival in Durham, England’s leading festival of theatre for young audiences, which runs from 19 to 25 October 2015. The ultimate ambition is for the commissions to form full pieces in 2016.