Blog: Continuing the Conversation: Young Producers at the Heart of Contact
A conversation between Matt Fenton, Artistic Director at Contact, Manchester, and Mandla Rae, a poet, producer and member of Re:CON, Contact’s Young Producers t...
Matt Fenton
Matt Fenton
Matt Fenton is Artistic Director/Chief Executive at Contact in Manchester, the leading UK arts venue to place young people at the decision-making heart of the organisation. Matt leads on Contact’s innovative public programme of contemporary theatre, dance, spoken word, music and cabaret for young and highly diverse audiences. Each year Contact delivers a wealth of young people’s creative and leadership activity, including flagship projects The Agency, ReCON: young programmers, and Future Fires, as well as the Queer Contact, Flying Solo and Contacting the World Festivals. Recent Contact co-productions include No Guts No Heart No Glory by CommonWealth, RITES by Yusra Warsama and Cora Bissett, Big Girl’s Blouse by Kate O’Donnell; Dancing Bear by Jamie Fletcher; Not In My Honour by Aisha Zia; Handlooms by Rani Moorthy; and I Told My Mum I Was Going On An RE Trip (Contact and 20 Stories High, for stage and BBC Two broadcast). As a theatre director, Matt worked most recently with KunstZ (Belgium) and Contact Young Company on Imitation Games; on Contact produced Climate of Fear; Water Seeds Not Stones by Elmi Ali, and with Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) on the chamber opera In May.