NEWS: Talent Development: The Engine Room of the Future - Live Theatre announces its talent development opportunities for 2022

 

Talent Development: The Engine Room of the Future - Live Theatre announces its talent development opportunities for 2022

 

Live Theatre, Newcastle is excited to announce its major talent development opportunities for 2022. Three major call outs are now open including, The Live Theatre Elevator Bursary of £2500, writers for Your Voice Your Future: North East and for Live Playwriting course. Other opportunities will open later in the year.

Live Theatre’s Creative Producer, Graeme Thompson said, “All throughout lockdown Live continued to support artists, to provide entry points to the creative sector, to commission them and connect with them. Now post-lock down it is vital to keep that level of engagement with artists. Through these opportunities we hope to make more connections and ensure freelance artists have the support they need to make new work.”

For Live Theatre Bursary, Live Theatre is on the lookout for outstanding, imaginative story-led ideas. Submissions can come from individuals, companies, collaborations or those who may work a little differently.

The Live Theatre Elevator Bursary offers a £2,500 cash grant to use against any part of the project. In addition, the bursary will also include dramaturgical and producing support as well as R&D and rehearsal space, with an approximate £10,000 in-kind value. Bursary winning pieces will also have the opportunity to be performed as part of Live Theatre’s Elevator Festival in 2023. The deadline for application is Friday 8 July.

Do you have a story that needs to be heard? For Your Voice Your Future: North East, Live Theatre are looking for new-ten minute plays that reflect the contemporary lived experience in the North East and how the world ahead of us could be reimagined.

Live Theatre is also keen to expand the existing network of North East writers and theatre artists, and hear from new voices from within the region. To help to discover those new voices, submissions will only be accepted from writers or theatre artists who have had no previous work professionally performed at Live Theatre.

Successful plays will each receive a £1,000 commission and be produced and presented by Live Theatre as part of Your Voice, Your Future: North East on Live’s main stage from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 September 2022. Deadline for submissions is Friday 1 July.

Live Theatre is also on the lookout for budding North East writers interested in writing for the stage. Live Playwriting is a friendly and informal course that serves as an introduction to playwriting and is aimed at those at the beginning of their playwriting journey. The course explores some of the key aspects of writing a play for the stage, as well as lifting the lid on how the theatre industry works and how writers get their plays programmed.

Hosted by Live Theatre’s creative team, with workshops from leading theatre professionals, this 10-week course will cover storytelling, plot, character, dialogue and theatricality.

Throughout the ten weeks participants will also develop and explore an idea for a stage play, leading to a sharing of the work by an ensemble of professional actors at the end of the course. The ten sessions will take place both in person at Live Theatre and online for those who would prefer, 1pm – 3pm every Saturday, from 5 November 2022 to 21 January 2023. The deadline for Live Playwriting applications is Wednesday 31 August.

Throughout September 2022 the open submission window for new scripts will be open. This year are the focus will be writers from the North East or who live in the North East. Live Theatre want to discover more regional talent and connect with more regional writers. This will be done in partnership with Alphabetti Theatre (Newcastle), Laurels Theatre (Whitley Bay) and The Customs House (South Shields) to widen the opportunity for new relationships.

Open Script Submission is not a script competition and there is no specific commission or production outcome. Rather Live Theatre and partner venues are looking to build relationships with writers with distinctive voices from our region, that tell stories about our region.

Live Theatre is dedicated to supporting freelance artists increasing opportunities for early career artists as well as discovering and celebrating writers from this region . Each year Live works with over a thousand freelance artists through a free to access talent development programme. Since 2018 Live Theatre have welcomed over 200 companies into the rehearsal room, studio and writers rooms, and provided over 600 days of free creative space. Many of the plays you see on the stages begin life in a workshop, a scratch night or in one of the rehearsal spaces. But it’s also bigger than that. The talent development programme gives artists a chance to have their own agency and find pathways into the wider industry. Live Theatre is also delighted to continue to offer a freelance ticket offer with independent artists having access to our productions from £6.

For more information on any of the talent development opportunities at Live Theatre go to www.live.org.uk/talent