seeing theatre in a new light
TheatreCraft, the UK’s largest FREE theatre careers event is back!
Coming to the Royal Opera House on Monday 20 November, anyone aged 16-30 seeking an off-stage role in theatre can network with employers and industry professionals in the live marketplace and take part in off-stage Q&As, workshops and panel talks in person.
For further details visit their website here
A new article from the esteemed Ransom Center in Texas allows us to recall one of the deadliest nights in theatre history.
In the 1980s, the Harry Ransom Center received a fascinating and unique historical artefact. John and Vera Hills had donated a scrapbook of theirs which featured an extraordinary unpublished account of their survival of the Knickerbocker Theatre roof collapse in Washington, D.C. on January 28, 1922.
A fascinating article by graduate assistant Hannah Neuhauser explores this scrapbook and its astonishing first-hand testimony.
You can read Hannah’s article here
Company A New Direction announce STEP 7, which offers a 12-month paid traineeship for young East Londoners wanting to step into careers in the creative & cultural sectors
Our Shared Training and Employment Programme (STEP) returns for its 7th iteration this spring 2023 and they’re on the lookout for 15 East Londoners aged 18-30 brimming with new ideas, creative energy and timely perspectives.
Those of you joining their popular traineeship will be matched with committed local businesses to experience an entry-level role in the creative or cultural sector where you’ll get paid a London Living Wage or above salary over a 12-month training programme. Be ready to develop a range of skills and creative approaches as you get your foot in the door, grow as part of a like-minded group, take part in monthly professional development workshops, and receive a budget to boost your professional portfolio as you take part in a collaborative creative project.
They’ll also connect you with a specialist industry mentor, provide personal career coaching and continue to offer support in your creative employment journey as you graduate the programme as an alumnus and join our wider creative community.
This year they are offering 11 placements from CEBE, BBC Music, Broadcast Revolution, The Student View, GROW Hackney, The HudsonBec Group, UCL East, Immediate Theatre, and 3 Mills Studios.
Sectors in focus this round include:
Museums & Galleries
Film, Music, TV, Radio, Broadcast & Production
Advertising, PR, Marketing, Print Media & Publishing, Business Operations
Not sure which suits you most? Take their STEP 7 personality quiz to find out.
Deadline for applications: 10am, Friday 31 March 2023
Find out more information, and get the application forms and criteria here
The latest round of the Theatre Improvement Scheme in association with the Wolfson Foundation has awarded a total of £124,000 in grants to seven theatres.
This round of the scheme has funded small but impactful projects to reduce resource consumption and develop best practice in sustainability. These include replacing bathroom fixtures, fitting solar panels and battery storage, and updating lighting to energy-efficient LEDs.
The theatres receiving funding are:
An Lanntair, Stornoway
Cast, Doncaster
The Garage, Norwich
Leeds Grand Theatre & Opera House
New Diorama Theatre, London
Old Fire Station, Oxford
Tyne Theatre & Opera House, Newcastle upon Tyne
Congratulations to all the recipients!
The next round of funding applications is now open (closing September 5th), so if your venue wants to improve its sustainability, find out more and apply here
New York-based MINT Theatre company are generously making available to the public past productions around the world for free.
Streaming globally until March 19th is the 1931 play PHILIP GOES FORTH by Pulitzer Prize-winner George Kelly.
PHILIP GOES FORTH tells the story of a young man who rebels against his father and a career in the family business and ventures to New York to write plays. He leaves home without his father’s support or blessing, but with this warning: “Don’t imagine, whenever you get tired floating around up there in the clouds that you can drop right back into your place down here;—that isn’t the way things go—”
George Kelly was a celebrated author in the 1920s, the man who wrote the 1925 psychological drama CRAIG’S WIFE, centered around an obsessive, destructive housewife, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize. By this time, notes Foster Hirsch, “a new play (by Kelly) was as keenly anticipated as a new one by Eugene O’Neill.”
PHILIP GOES FORTH made its debut at the Biltmore Theater on Broadway in January of 1931. George Kelly’s comedy has some discouraging words for its title character—and this rubbed a few critics the wrong way. The Times’ Brooks Atkinson was especially disgruntled. “To discourage the neophytes about coming to New York and trying their fortune with the arts is to accept considerable responsibility,” Atkinson proclaimed, while missing the point of the play. Kelly was so disappointed by the lack of critical perception that he gave up writing for the theatre for the next five years.
MINT Theatre’s 2013 production—the play’s first in 82 years—finally garnered the play the critical perception it deserved.
You can find out more about the play, and stream it until March 19th, here