If you are a small company or an artist that has a creative project that needs a cash injection and some industry support to get it off the ground then Gone in 20 Minutes could really help you out. Winners of this development grant of £3000 will be given mentoring sessions and the opportunity to present their work to audiences in Skegness, London and Stockton. It sounds like a great opportunity, so why not go for it? You have nothing to lose…

Gone in 20 Minutes

Gone in 20 Minutes gives eight artists or companies a development grant of £3,000 to realise their small to medium-scale idea or project.The winners will participate in mentoring sessions with Gi20’s partners and will be given the opportunity to present their work in front of national audiences and arts programmers at SO Festival, Skegness (7 July) Shoreditch Festival, London (13 to 14 July) and Stockton International Riverside Festival, SIRF (3 to 4 August).

Applications are welcome from all art forms including circus, dance, theatre, music and visual arts or a combination of the above.

Gi20 is a national, outdoor performance programme that offers development funding, mentoring support and showcasing opportunities for emerging artists to develop small- to medium-scale outdoor arts projects.

For more information, visit IdeasTap. Deadline for application: Friday 19 April at 5.00pm.

Photo. Joli Vyann – ‘Don’t Drink and Dance’ (winners of last year’s Audience Prize)

As the latest group of budding practitioners recovers from last weekend’s 24 Hour Plays finale, we take a look at the legacy of this project which came to the Old Vic nine years ago as a fundraiser for Old Vic New Voices. When Steve Winter, who runs the project, took over they turned it into an emerging talent search, though it didn’t take long for OVNV to realise that it was also a great way to bring people together and to promote them, “And that’s been the power of the project,” says Winter, “that there’s now an understanding from lots of people in our industry that we’ve done all the hard work to find the best emerging practitioners we can. They see it as a mark of quality. Often, straight after the show, people get work”. I caught up with some 24 Hour Play alumni to see what they’re up to now, and  how being part of the project has shaped them.

“I always refer back to the 24 Hour Plays as being the project that made me realise anything was possible,” says Sophie Watson, one of last year’s producers, who reapplied in 2011 after not getting an interview in 2010 – proof that if you are unlucky the first time round it may be worth another shot. She is now Programme and Projects Manager at Watford Palace Theatre and Producer on but i cd only whisper at the Arcola Theatre. “If you can bring a team of people together and deliver to an audience in such a potentially highly pressured environment and time frame then what can’t we achieve as theatre-makers given enough time and the room to think creatively and collaborate?”

It is this emphasis on collaboration that sets the 24 Hour Plays apart from other projects, and makes it very different from your average showcase. Benjamin O’Mahony, who is currently performing in a world tour of Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew with Propeller, says, “Part of the success of OVNV, I think, is the emphasis it puts on encouraging people to collaborate and forge creative relationships beyond the work the Old Vic itself produces. It’s amazing how regularly I get invites to shows that have been born out of OVNV projects.”

But O’Mahony is not going to let misty-eyed hindsight make him forget the reality of the 24 Hour Plays at the time: “It wasn’t fun”, he says. “That’s not the right word for it. It was a brilliant mix of excitement, adrenaline, exhaustion and terror. Luckily I was relatively well behaved the night before and didn’t over exploit the free booze that OVNV had laid on, but I hardly slept when I got home, so when I turned up at Waterloo Bar and Grill at 7am I was already knackered. The day itself was manic. The need to make quick choices in rehearsal was a lesson I learnt speedily: page one of our script read ‘Tom enters, begins to set the table for dinner, and breaks into a complicated spontaneous dance routine’ to which I said, ‘sweet I’ll just go on and freestyle something. What’s next?’”

It’s definitely worth remembering that involvement in the 24 Hour Plays has the potential to be an enormously stressful experience. Perhaps most of all for the writers, although Winter suggests the process maybe benefits them the most, too. “In my view, the inclination of lots of writers is to procrastinate and to labour over something because they are never entirely happy, and often what it [their work] needs is a reading – it needs to be out there and heard before the final changes can be made.” This certainly tallies with the experience of writer Eleanor Lawrence, who is currently filming Sunshine, a sitcom pilot about South London gangsters she co-wrote with Tom Davis: “I learned a lot doing it [the 24 Hour Plays], like how to resist having preconceived ideas beforehand and how to stop being precious about my work. The process of writing a play in six hours left no time for self-indulgence or doubt, just creative instinct.  That experience has definitely helped shape the way I work now. Before the 24 Hour Plays, I generally couldn’t begin putting words on the page until the idea was perfectly formed, with the characters properly defined in my mind. I would procrastinate about what type of hobbies my misanthropic Nigerian nurse would have, before I could write her response to another character’s dialogue. Since the 24 Hour Plays I just get the ideas on the page and edit them later.”

The 24 Hour Plays isn’t just for one night only though. What goes on over this intense annual weekend has an effect on the theatre scene all year round, and with the growth of reputation come some changes. Winter comments that: “The range of people that come and see it now is probably the biggest change. When we first started off we saw it very much as a theatre project but  if you look down the industry list now there are casting directors, TV commissioners, programmers, filmmakers – they are just interested to see the group of people who have been put through their paces alongside nearly 3000 other applicants to get through to this stage.”

But he is keen to make clear that more than being a showcase, what the 24 Hour Plays project seeks to do is create lasting relationships at the start of careers. “Directors always comment on what an amazing opportunity it is to see 20 to 30 actors that they can cast in future, that they have direct contact with. For producers it’s an amazing opportunity to make those peer contacts. In the end it’s about people who can work at speed and who are interested in collaboration, and that’s what it gives them.” Edward Stambollouian, who is currently Assistant Director on The Merry Wives of Windsor at the RSC, agrees: “I’m not sure the 24 Hour Plays is the place to explore artistic practice. It’s fast, furious and unrelenting. It’s all about the show, and the director’s job is making sure that come 7.30 something happens! But I did learn a lot about the value of instinct, precision, clarity and time-keeping. Sometimes our first ideas are our best (although often they’re not.)”

What shines through as Winter and the alumni talk to me is what a supportive network OVNV’s 24 Hour Plays really is. It is a community with a wide reach, bringing industry representatives and creative practitioners from different fields together to form professional relationships that will develop over years to come. I ask Winter what he would like the legacy of the project to be: “a place you make amazing networking opportunities that will propel you forward, both in terms of who you meet in the wider industry but more importantly your peer group.” Indeed, as director Stambollouian says, “In this competitive and often quite isolating profession it’s comforting to be part of a huge network of actors, writers, producers and fellow directors. The OVNV family as it were.”

Find out more about Old Vic New Voices and the 24 Hour Plays at http://www.ideastap.com/Partners/ovnv.

Image Credit: Old Vic New Voices

There are times when you look back and wonder if what you once thought was a Really Good Idea was actually a gin-and-tonic-induced disintegration into madness. Be warned: taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe is an experience that puts the fear of God in your heart and the bottle of gin back in your hands. It’s the only place where you 100% don’t just turn up and do your job – not least if you want your show to be a success! Producing and performing in a show is both a blessing and a curse, you get incredible insight and responsibility into differing roles, but you also get double the amount of work, stress and headaches.

Producing for the first time at the Fringe can be so full of unintentional trip-ups that you can sometimes feel like you’re starring in your own version of Total Wipeout. Firstly, it is vital you start to prep everything way before deadlines, as changes are about as common as rain on a British bank holiday. Secondly, you must adopt that classic Spiderman/Shakespeare mantra: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”. Regardless of which category you fit into, you must believe that you and the show will be great, and unequivocally roll with the punches. Finally, having a functional working relationship with your production team and cast is imperative for your sanity and your mobile phone’s longevity. Fortunately, there is a whole network of people available for support, to answer the little questions and help you figure out the big ones. This network is mostly embodied by the Fringe Office and your venue, which should also be praying for your show to be a success and should be happy to talk you through mind-numbing things like contracts and insurance. Not to mention the multitude of other Fringe performers and goers across Twitter and IdeasTap who will readily dispense advice.

Funding your project can, and will most likely, be a pain in the ass. There are gabillions of trusts and foundations to which you can apply for funding, but usually they’re only interested if you’re staging your piece in aid of something more honourable than your own ego, such as community development or working with disadvantaged kids. IdeasTap also offer a huge monetary prize but beware of the very early application deadline. Then, beyond contacting local or national businesses and asking for sponsorship as part of their community ventures, there’s always crowdfunding – an excellent, cheap and easy way to promote your show and garner online donations from friends and strangers alike. You should try to exhaust every fundraising possibility you have time for and be creative! It is desperately important that you begin to fundraise from the word go as the majority of your payments will be in advance of the show and you will not be reimbursed through ticket sales till after the Fringe ends.

So why do it if it is such hard work and feels like you are straddling a tectonic plate? Because where else but at the Fringe do you meet a hoard of generous folk (besides your doting parents) who are willing to invest their time and money by watching you flounce around a stage hoping to communicate the profundity of a text? Where else do you get to do everything yourself, learn everything the hard way, stay up half the night rehearsing, sell your soul on the Royal Mile, or race up Arthur’s Seat in order to bare your naked skin to the sunrise over beautiful Edinburgh?

Come the 28August, when we leave Edinburgh, we can look back at it as the train speeds away, laden with bags in our hands and under our eyes, an empty bank account and a sense that, yes, we did that, all by ourselves: We Conquered the Fringe.

Written by producer Francesca Murray-Fuentes.

Image: Rush Theatre’s Francesca Murray-Fuentes and Chi-San Howard.

Find out more about Rush Theatre by visiting their Twitter or website.

Language surrounds the creation of theatre. Language places theatre in its context, adds content, defines its very nature. Should women writers be confined to writing about concepts that concern women and feminism? This goes against the very concepts of feminism, equality and individuality, and Ovalhouse is celebrating women within the arts with its current Lady-Led season.

This new four-production season defies expectations of what writing by women ‘should’ be like. Alongside Mars.Tarrab’s production of Tomboy Blues, fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, are three world premieres: Lagan by Stacey Gregg, TaniwhaThames by Stella Duffy and Shaky Isles, and Same Same by Shireen Mula. All feature female leads but do not specifically focus on ‘feminine’ issues, which only provide the context for the plays. Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, a Director of Theatre at Ovalhouse, explains that the season does not intend to categorise female artists as ‘female’, for fear that this would encourage unnecessary stigma regarding the work of women. She believes a disservice would be done to the Lady-Led season had a typically feminist stance been taken: “When we first put together the artists we were considering to be part of our first season, we realised that each one was led by a female theatre maker. It wasn’t a conscious choice at all, and we joked that people were going to think we were intent on returning Ovalhouse to its past incarnation as an activist ‘Women’s Theatre’”. Atkinson-Lord argues that gender should not be the main focus within artistic practice, as this might add to pressure felt by female artists to write about ‘female’ issues. Co-Director Rachel Briscoe agrees that “doing a season called Lady-Led where the shows are not ‘about women’ is a statement in itself”, and aims to encourage female artists to make theatre with their own agenda. Both Atkinson-Lord and Briscoe actively disagree with the kind of one-dimensional theatre that compartmentalises artists and does nothing to question stereotypes. Women should not be bound to writing about feminist or women’s issues.

However, opinions on female theatre differ widely, and there are voices advocating a feminist approach to the arts. 17percent is an organisation supporting and promoting female playwrights through networking events, courses, feedback and dramaturgy; championing women’s achievements in the theatre; and providing positive female inspirations through showcases with feedback and mentoring opportunities. Founder Sam Hall has observed the imbalance between men and women in the theatre industry and believes this must be addressed. Hall notes this is due to “a mix of reasons – starting with how much longer men have been accepted as creators of art, and that any woman who now succeeds within this structure is credited with being a ‘woman in a man’s world’”. Then there is “the misconception that women write about certain things and won’t get an audience”. Hall believes that 17% is a significant figure, quoted at Sphinx theatre’s 2009 ‘Vamps, Vixens and Feminists’ conference as the percentage of UK plays written by women being produced, matching the pay gap between men and women (figures from 2010). A key aim of 17percent is to make more audiences aware of the diversity of female-written plays. This echoes Atkinson-Lord’s stance on promoting women beyond gender specificity: “Women seem to be increasingly rejecting the club… making more interesting work with their own companies on the fringe, or in the independent and more experimental sector,” Hall comments. She champions women’s choice to indulge a variety of works and has “interviewed many female playwrights and directors who produce female-led work, but they’re not high profile… even though they are working hard to level the playing field”. But Hall believes it is possible for this to change – and that it must. “The Lady-Led season at Ovalhouse is a brilliant step forwards, but we need this impetus to continue, for more women to get their hands on all aspects of theatre”. Until female and male playwrights attain artistic equality, 17percent aims to support women and to break through the barriers they are faced with. It is a question of authenticity in representation too. As Hall notes, ”if all the stories being told are being told from one perspective, (generally white and male), then we keep getting a biased and distorted picture”.

However, Atkinson-Lord speculates that statistics can “say whatever you want with a bit of spin”. She wonders “if the statistic should be framed differently, like ‘17% of people who identify primarily as playwrights are female’. What about the devisers, collaborators, writer-directors and hybrid theatre makers that the contemporary theatre ecology is full of?” There are, it seems, myriad questions to be answered within theatre before equality can be established. Atkinson-Lord suggests, “Rather than getting caught up in a debate about arbitrary statistics, I think it’s more useful to work on giving as many people as possible – of all kinds – access to theatre, to art, to music, to great writing from all genres,” in order to nurture creativity. “The appreciation of art for art’s sake seems to have all but vanished… when we give everyone access to the very best theatre and the means to engage with it personally without measuring its value in monetary terms, then we’ll have enough playwrights of all kinds.” Developing talent regardless of gender will not only bridge the gap between segregated sections in the theatre industry but also uncover great talent which will aid the future of theatre through content, rather than context. Atkinson-Lord is immensely positive, suggesting that “things are changing and the best way I can make them change faster is to go out and be the equal of my contemporaries. Lady-Led is our way of saying that an artist’s identity is not subject, but context. Belfast, sea monsters, mixed heritage identity, Y-fronts – female artists can make theatre about anything.” Attitudes are changing. Ovalhouse’s approach paves the way for female writers to create for themselves, rather than being constrained by issues historical context may have thrust upon them. This is not a rejection of women’s heritage, but a progression into the twenty-first century. To programme artists as artists is both logical and strangely complex. Undoubtedly, gender will inform an artist’s work but is not usually its defining feature. Through the Lady-Led season, Atkinson-Lord hopes to alter discussion of equality and diversity within theatre by rejecting segregations: “people can end up trapped in that ‘box’.  I think we need to start saying – ok, cool, that’s who you are, now who do you want to be?” Atkinson-Lord sums up that at Ovalhouse: “we ask theatre makers what they want to say and then give them the means to say it”.

There is no denying that things are changing. Atkinson-Lord notes that ”our theatrical canon is hugely biased towards the blokes. And that’s because for so long they were the only ones whose voices mattered to society at large”. Now, labels matter less than ever to an artist’s message and audiences’ perceptions. Historical fact cannot be denied however: “female artists have had… to fight their corner and point out how distorted it makes everything, that I think some people have been fooled into thinking that that’s all female artists have to say… Sometimes, the fight for the right to speak eclipses what you wanted to say in the first place”. So the ethos of Lady-Led? Altering the boundaries for innovative writing. As Atkinson-Lord proudly states, “to produce a season of work called Lady-Led where the shows aren’t ‘About Women’ is a statement in itself. A provocation. That’s what we want.”

For more information on Ovalhouse’s Lady-Led season, running until Saturday 10 December, visit the theatre’s website here.

To learn more about 17percent and forthcoming events, visit its website here or tweet @17percent.

Image credit: Ovalhouse