The fifth Shoot Festival which showcases “the best of Coventry’s early-career arts scene” is to take place at various venues across the city.
Festival directors Jen Davis and Paul O’Donnell were inspired to create a platform to support the growth and development of early-career artists based in the CV postcode. Shoot was established in 2014.
One strand of the festival will be held at the Belgrade Theatre and will feature a double bill. Gamble by Hannah Walker and Rosa Postlethwaite is a live multimedia show based around the pitfalls of gambling addiction while there will be excerpts from a new play, protests, hymns and caskets by lanaire aderemi which recounts the Nigerian feminist movement’s successful overthrow of colonial taxation in 1947 and its legacy. The two shows can be seen on Thursday 28 and Friday 29 April.
The following day, Saturday 30 April, performance pieces will be staged in the city’s Shop Front Theatre. The line-up includes autobiographical work covering topics such as neurodivergence, the education system and examinations of the queer experience through technology-based performance.
Jen Davis said, “we’re delighted that Shoot Festival is returning to Coventry for its fifth festival of celebrating trailblazing local talent.
“After two years of uncertainty, emerging artists have been one of the hardest hit in the cultural sector and we’re determined to offer them the platform they deserve. Coventry and Warwickshire are bursting with pioneering theatre makers and we're immensely pleased to be offering such a diverse and exciting programme.”