Artist Development

Emily Joy, centre, who received 2018’s Career Kickstarter Fund, in action with the National Youth Theatre.

Applications are now open for two of our annual funds designed to support new theatre makers based in Hull, our Career Kickstarter Fund and our First Show Fund.

It’s well documented that the costs associated with pursuing a career as an actor are often a barrier to many working class artists.

Our Career Kickstarter Fund will make a dent in those initial costs for one actor each year by paying for professional headshots and one year’s Spotlight membership.

The chosen actor will also be offered free, one-to-one audition workshops with Middle Child’s artistic director, Paul Smith.

Meanwhile making your first piece of work as a company or individual can be overwhelming enough without even considering the costs.

That’s why each year our First Show Fund provides support to one new Hull theatre maker to produce, market and record their first piece of work.

The fund covers a venue hire fee, script and marketing printing costs, professional filming, production photography and poster and flyer design.

We will also provide a range of in-kind support, including rehearsal space plus time with each member of the core team, covering directing, producing, marketing and technical expertise.

Applications for both funds are now open and close at 10am on Monday 9th September 2019.

The Career Kickstarter and First Show funds are part of Reverb, our artist development programme for theatre makers living and working in Hull, designed to offer first class opportunities to artists so that they don’t have to leave the city.

• Find out more about and apply for the Career Kickstarter Fund.
• Find out more about and apply for the First Show Fund.

Our theatre library has expanded, thanks to our amazing publishers Oberon, who have once again donated copies of everything that they published last year.

Below is a selection of some of the biggest hits you may have missed on the stage, that you can now borrow from our little library at Darley’s.

Visit our online catalogue to browse the full collection and to reserve plays to borrow.

(cn: some of the descriptions below refer to violence, grief, transphobia, racism and sexual violence)

Emilia

Written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm at a time when #MeToo dominated headlines, Emilia is the never-before-told story of Emilia Bassano, a published poet long rumoured to have been Shakespeare’s muse – the Dark Lady.

dressed.

After being stripped at gun point, Lydia set out to redress herself with a new healing set of armour. Lydia now only wears clothes she has made.

Told with a tender intimacy, dressed., is a true story from This Egg, told by four women who have been friends since school.

Pah-La

When Deshar carries out an act of defiance it reverberates across Tibet and a new freedom struggle is born with life changing consequences for Deshar, Deng and their families.

Pah-La, based on real stories during the 2008 Lhasa riots, is an examination from playwright Abhishek Majumdar of the future of non-violence.

Global Queer Plays

A unique anthology bringing together stories of queer life from international playwrights, these seven plays showcase the dazzling multiplicity of queer narratives across the globe: the absurd, the challenging, and the joyful.

Burgerz

Burgerz asks the questions: What does the trans body do in order to survive? And how can one become a protector, rather than a bystander?

Carving out a place for themselves as one of the most prominent trans voices in the UK, Travis Alabanza presents a piece that is both timely and true to their style: both unsettling and powerful.

The Lovely Bones

Susie Salmon is just like any other young girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There’s one big difference though – Susie is dead.

Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery collaborates with director Melly Still (Coram Boy, National Theatre) on this unforgettable adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel about life after loss.

Poet In Da Corner

In a strict Mormon household somewhere in the seam between East London and Essex, a girl is given Dizzee Rascal’s ground-breaking grime album Boy in da Corner by her best friend SS Vyper.

Step into a technicolour world where music, dance and spoken word collide, and discover how grime allowed Debris Stevenson to redefine herself.

The Trick

The Trick is a magic show about the parts of life we don’t talk about – the realities of getting older and coming to terms with loss, from playwright Eve Leigh.

Ghosts, goldfish, mediums, and sleight-of-hand collide in this unpredictable exploration of ageing and grief.

I’m a Phoenix, Bitch

In 2016, Bryony Kimmings nearly drowned. Post-natal breakdowns, an imploding relationship and an extremely sick child left her sitting beneath the waves hoping she could slowly turn to shell.

Tonight a new legend will be created; that of the invincible and fearless woman; a tale Bryony wishes she had known from birth.

Queens of Sheba

Turned away from a nightclub for being “too black”, four women take to the stage with their own explosive true stories.

Loosely based on the DSRKT nightspot incident of 2015, Queens of Sheba tells the hilarious, moving and uplifting stories of four passionate Black Women battling everyday misogynoir – where sexism meets racism.

User Not Found

What happens to our digital lives after we die? Become a fly-on-the-wall to peer into the life of a man who is faced with keeping or deleting.

A story of contemporary grief unfolds through this intimate, funny performance that gently interrogates our need for connection, from the pioneering Chris Goode.

Dance Nation

Somewhere in America, a revolution is coming. An army of competitive dancers is ready to take over the world, one routine at a time.

With a pre-teen battle for power and perfection raging on and off stage, Dance Nation is a ferocious exploration of youth, ambition and self-discovery from Clare Barron.