We are thrilled to announce our new podcast launching next Thursday, 22nd October! ‘Behind The Curtains‘ is co-produced by English Touring Theatre in partnership with writer, producer and theatremaker Siana Bangura & writer and theatre critic Christina Nicole.

Behind the Curtains – co-hosted by Siana & Christina – is a podcast spotlighting the off-stage, behind the curtains roles that are the backbone of theatre. How are writers, directors, sound designers, producers, production managers, movement directors and voice and dialect coaches weathering the storms of uncertainty? How did they get to where they are now? What pearls of wisdom do they have for their peers in the industry and those still looking to enter it? What’s race got to do with it? And how do we stay inspired and motivated through the thick and through the thin? Tune in for answers to all of these questions and more!

Listen Here

Episodes will be released fortnightly, available on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Acast and anywhere else you get your podcasts!

The UK’s leading touring theatre companies are uniting this autumn to present Signal Fires, a nationwide project inspired by one of the original forms of theatre – storytelling around a fire.

Presented at a time when it is not possible to physically tour, 45North, Arcade, Beyond Face, Big Telly, Boundless, Eastern Angles, English Touring Theatre, Fen in association with Out of Joint, Fuel, Graeae, Headlong, Hightide, Kestrel Theatre Company, Kneehigh, Macha Productions, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, New Perspectives, Pentabus, Pilot, Paines Plough, SBC Theatre, Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Slung Low, Spare Tyre, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and Yellow Earth Theatre (with more to be announced) are uniting for the first time, to collectively tour a single idea throughout October and into November.

Each company will self-produce an evening of work – a signal fire – at a different location across the UK  in celebration of our fundamental need to tell stories, in order to help make sense of the world around us and reimagine the future. Presented outdoors in front of socially-distanced live audiences, or digitally for those who are shielding or currently unable to travel, every signal fire will incorporate a different form of physical fire, ranging from large-scale bonfires to candles, virtual fires to campfires, and BBQ’s to mobile phone lights. Working with hundreds of UK freelancers each company’s fire will be different from the last, spanning different disciplines reflecting the breadth and diversity of the touring circuit.

In light of the current crisis, the signal fires will create beacons across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland warning of the threat the industry continues to face while celebrating the extraordinary vibrancy of touring theatre and the freelancers they engage. Stretching across four nations, this festival of fires will connect audiences, freelance artists and touring companies together in a communal, national act of storytelling.

The health and safety of audiences, artists, creative teams and staff alike is of the upmost importance. All companies involved in the project will implement COVID secure measures to ensure that their full process, from rehearsal to performance, is in line with the current government guidelines, following strict hygiene protocols and allowing for social distancing.

Holly Race Roughan, Associate Artistic Director of Headlong said: ‘Signal Fires is an unprecedented project born out of unprecedented times. It has been incredibly inspiring and humbling to connect with so many different touring theatre companies. To be reminded of the sheer breadth and diversity of the UK touring ecology, the audiences we engage, and crucially what we now stand on the brink of losing. Touring theatre companies are vital for sharing stories across communities, so we can learn from each-other and reimagine a future together. Signal Fires demonstrates the power of collaboration and the need to embrace both innovation and new ways of working if we are to weather the challenging months ahead.’

Richard Twyman, CEO and Artistic Director of English Touring Theatre said: ‘When the theatres first closed, a group of touring companies came together to support each other; sharing ideas, learning and resources. A collective of companies determined to keep making work, serving audiences and engaging artists. Signal Fires was born from these conversations. As we all seek to make sense of what we’re living through and what comes next, we look to our storytellers to guide us forward. Each fire on its own is a small-scale coming together, but collectively, lit up across the UK, they represent a national act of storytelling. A chance to connect: to celebrate imagination and empathy in this time of isolation and uncertainty.’

Signal Fires will run from October to November at various locations across the UK. Further details will be announced shortly.

Today, we are proud to announce Nationwide Voices, a mid-scale talent development programme for playwrights from across the country. 2020 is the inaugural year of the project, led by ETT in collaboration with Kiln Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, Rifco Theatre Company, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatr Clwyd, with each venue or company offering a year-long attachment for each chosen playwright.

This year the playwrights are Adam Hughes (Leeds Playhouse), Matilda Ibini (ETT), Sonia Jalaly (Kiln Theatre), Asif Khan (Rifco Theatre Company), John Rwothomack (Sheffield Theatres) and Emily White (Theatr Clwyd).

The programme aims to connect writers with mid-scale theatres and support them through the crucial career transition onto main stages, while also enabling theatres nationwide to platform fresh and imaginative voices with a connection to their local area. These six writers will broaden and develop their craft through regular workshop sessions led by the award-winning playwright Chris Bush and featuring several guest speakers. They will also receive an initial seed commission, and the work they create during Nationwide Voices will be shared at a festival of staged readings in spring 2021, with ETT and partners working towards further commissioning, co-producing and touring of the plays in the future.

Nationwide Voices is made possible thanks to the John Ellerman Foundation, who have generously funded ETT to run this programme for the next three years.

Artistic Director of ETT, Richard Twyman today said “when we first conceived of Nationwide Voices the world was a very different place, and so we’ve had to adapt it to a changing landscape. But its core aim is more important than ever: to support talented, brave and imaginative writers to have their work produced on the nation’s main stages. Nationwide Voices is about forging connections between writers, venues, audiences and the touring sector to create work of national reach and relevance: celebrating remarkable voices, the diversity of our nation’s communities and the vitality of our theatres.

We don’t know what the theatre landscape is going to look like going forward but we do know that more than ever we need to look to writers and the stories they tell to help reshape our world.

We are deeply grateful to the John Ellerman Foundation for making this programme possible.”

Chris Bush added, “A lot of writers seem to spend years (if not decades) in a state of perpetual emergence. What makes this scheme so important is its specific aim to get newer writers creating work for bigger auditoriums and wider audiences. At the moment, everyone in our industry is understandably preoccupied with how to survive the current crisis. However, in the long term the theatre will only thrive by investing in talent and commissioning “riskier” work from artists who aren’t yet established names. If we keep looking to the same few ‘safe pairs of hands’ we doom ourselves to ever-dwindling audiences and diminishing artistic returns. Instead, our ambition must be to create work that is truly representative of our nation, by championing voices that haven’t yet been given a large national platform. Nationwide Voices has selected six of the most exciting writers from across the country, and I can’t wait to start working with them.”

A series of strange stories for stranger times

F**ked Up Bedtime Stories (for adults) features seven short stories written by Alissa Anne Jeun Yi, Dipo Baruwa-Etti, Tim Crouch, Vivienne Franzmann, Matilda Ibini, Amy Jephta and Anthony Neilson. We asked these 7 brilliant and provocative writers to tackle the strangeness of our nighttime imaginings and twist the familiar form of bedtime stories into something uncanny, dark and surreal.

Read by Paapa Essiedu and Amber James

Directed by Jennifer Bakst with Sound, Music and Editing by Max Pappenheim.

You can check out the episodes on our Watch & Listen page.

ETT stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and everyone fighting against racism and oppression.

We recognise there is systemic racism in our industry, that we as an organisation and individuals haven’t done enough to fight against it, and that going forward our priority is to make change happen. We also recognise that just saying that is not enough. We are committed to listening and working to confront and interrogate our own practises and structures. To creating lasting, sustained change at ETT and in the wider industry. There are so many actions we can take, big and small, that can have a profound impact.

Being transparent and holding ourselves to account publicly is the first step. It’s important we share where we are, and how much further we have to go. With that in mind, we are publishing the workforce data we have available which outlines ethnic diversity across roles employed by ETT in the last 4 years. We have counted each role employed, so if someone has been contracted on different shows in the same financial year or if a show is remounted for further touring/transfers, this has been counted twice. We will share data around gender and disability in the coming weeks.

Our Statistics

Staff: includes all full time, part time and volunteer staff roles on ETT’s payroll during the year

Creatives: includes every creative role working with ETT during the year including: Directors, Designers (Set, Lighting, Sound and Video), Movement Directors, Choreographers, Voice & Dialect Coaches, Fight Directors and Casting Directors

Writers Commissioned: Includes all commissions; full-length, short & digital

Production Teams: includes all production and technical roles including; Stage Manager, Production Manager, Technician, Wardrobe Manager and the Stage Crew we employ for our tours.

Total Personnel: includes every role ETT has employed in that financial year (staff, actor, creative and production teams)

Action Points

While there has been very real progress in the last 3-4 years, our statistics show that there is significant work to be done. We are at the baseline of what we want to achieve, and it’s clear that without putting more rigorous and effective structures in place we won’t get to where we need to. We commit to sharing our data publicly every year on our website so that we can be held publicly accountable.

Staff

We produce from 3 – 6 shows a year, all in co-production with different venues across the UK, as well as a number of other projects. We have a small core staff team so statistics can change quite significantly with members of staff joining or leaving. Our executive team is two people who are both White. Our management team is two people, one is White and one is Asian. 

Ethnic diversity in our core staff team is mostly in junior roles. In recent years we have focused on being a training organisation, and have had a significant number of Black and ethnically diverse staff, who joined the company in entry-level roles, go on to successfully secure permanent roles at other cultural organisations. However, while this is an important function for organisations of our size, it’s clear that we need to make the culture within ETT more open and inclusive, as well as create further opportunities internally, to retain diverse talent and carve clear pathways to senior roles within the company.      

Artists

We want to and we will commission more Black artists. While the percentages of Black actors, creatives and commissions that we work with have improved significantly over recent years there are a few things we must note. Firstly, we have a long way to go if we’re to balance a history that has been predominately and overwhelmingly white. Secondly, that alongside commissioning and making Black-led work, we have to invest more in making our work accessible to Black audiences.

Making touring accessible to all is essential to ETT’s identity and future. We strive to make touring an enjoyable, creatively and socially fulfilling experience for all but we recognise that there are specific barriers that can make touring a less positive experience for Black artists, and we must break these down. We need to look at and interrogate every step of the process of making and touring work and ask difficult questions about what we are currently not doing or getting wrong. We are in the process of creating a paid, advisory panel of Black artists, who have toured with us previously and asked to be involved in this work. We will publish all the learning and action points, and commit to working with other touring companies to create a shared code of conduct and new industry standards. This work will include:

• Overhauling our accommodation and digs system to ensure every artist feels safe and comfortable on tour, and any specific needs they may have, in relation to their protected characteristics, are met.
• Commit to only touring to venues willing to sign-up to a shared action plan for audience development and inclusive ticketing initiatives, that have equality and representation at their core.
• Provide bespoke professional support throughout rehearsals and whilst on tour to black actors and artists when they are working on productions that require them to draw on lived experiences of racism and trauma.
• Provide all ETT and tour staff with anti-bias and anti-racism training, and strongly encourage all venues we visit to do the same.
• Create an open dialogue with the venues we tour to about racism, prejudice and micro-aggressions by sharing our anti-racism policy ahead of touring and embedding mutual procedures and practices for both organisation’s to follow.
• Work to establish a shared complaints procedure and code of conduct that will be followed whilst any of our staff are working with us and on tour at our partner and tour venues.
• Re-examine and re-write contracts to put anti-racism and representation at their centre. Whilst a commitment to ethnic diversity is written into our co-production agreements and creative contracts, it does not go far enough in drawing up tangible parameters in relation to positive action. We will examine, re-work and implement these parameters by which we can hold ourselves and our partners to account if not met, and give clarity to and empower the freelancers we employ who recruit creative and production teams.

This list is not exhaustive, it’s just the beginning, and going forward we will do everything we can to ensure our Black and ethnically diverse artists feel supported and safe and are able to fulfil all of their potential.

Production and Technical

Statistically this is the area of least representation in our workforce and across the creative industries. We are a long way from representation in these areas and it points to a widespread and profound lack of diversity across the industry in these roles. We will make this an area of priority for ETT and have started to reach out to organisations to begin this work. We don’t know how we’re going to do this yet but we do know that as a national touring company that regularly visits 25 – 35 venues each year, we have the responsibility and potential to make change happen. Every tour will be a chance to meet, listen to and provide opportunities for new diverse talent across the country.

We recently ran a scheme to create new pathways into production management with MGC Futures. ETT will continue with this programme and re-focus it as an opportunity for Black, ethnically diverse and under-represented talent. Alongside this we will work to have trainee production roles on every production, and partner with venues to create opportunities for school and higher education leavers.

Conclusion

We share these statistics and initial action points so that we can be open about where we are and how much further we have to go. But we know that statistics are static, they don’t reveal the day to day experiences, how decisions are made and where power lies in our organisation and the work we have to do to change that. Equality and equity are essential to ETT and the industry we want to be a part of. We must be representative of the nation we serve and the city we’re based in. We must help to build a future that is inclusive and just.

This statement has been written by all the staff at ETT. We have all committed to the actions above and in the coming weeks and months we will release more detail about how we plan to enact this change. It is important for us to state very clearly that these are initial steps to be taken and not an exhaustive list of everything we could, should and want to be doing.

We are proud to announce F**ked Up Bedtime Stories for Adults, an all-new audio project from ETT, coming out soon!

F**ked Up Bedtime Stories for Adults will feature seven short stories by seven brilliant writers: Tim Crouch, Anthony Neilson, Matilda Ibini, Dipo Baruwa-Etti, Amy Jephta, Alissa Anne Jeun Yi, and Vivienne Franzmann. Actors will read out the stories which will be released on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

But what is F**ked Up Bedtime Stories for Adults? Well… ever since lockdown and still now, many of us have been having trouble sleeping and have been haunted by strange dreams in these strange times. So we wanted to explore the weird and wonderful world of dreamscapes and nightmares. We asked some of our favourite writers to take the familiar form of the bedtime story and update it for adults; warp it to fit these strange and disturbing times. These short pieces are ideally listened to just before you head to bed, and are coming at you straight out of uncanny valley.

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with music and editing by Max Pappenheim. Casting to be announced soon!

You can now enjoy Cardboard Theatre for Kids over in Watch & Listen – check it out!

During lockdown, set designer Frankie Bradshaw and director Atri Banerjee made a video for kids teaching you how to make your own cardboard theatre and puppets at home – so you can play out stories for your family!

Also featuring a performance of The Two Little Goats by Atri Banerjee.

Video editing by Craig Nom Chong.

ETT is a proud signatory of this open letter to theatre and performance makers in the UK today, as published here.

Here is the letter in full:

This is a letter to self-employed and freelance theatre and performance makers in the UK. To the actors, playwrights, directors, choreographers, stage managers, designers, stage crews and set-builders to name just a few.

We really miss being with you during this period of lockdown. Making theatre and performance is a collaborative endeavour, so we are particularly affected by having to be apart from one another right now. We’re not able to come together, in the same space, to share the experience of a live performance. We’re not able to practise and enjoy our artform in its most basic form.

It’s now looking increasingly likely that won’t be possible for months to come, and we recognise that many freelancers face real uncertainty about if and how they will be able to continue to work in theatre. 70 per cent of people who work in theatre and performance in the UK are freelance or self-employed, and it’s for this workforce, in all its diversity and complexity, that the impact of the current situation is most acute.

During these past weeks we have had conversations with many of you to understand your needs and the ways you have been affected. We are writing to express our support for you, and to lay out some practical steps we are taking to improve the situation based on these conversations.

As well as exploring ways of producing work with freelancers during lockdown, and using this time to develop new projects with freelancers for the future, we are also are working together to coordinate our response to the government, to articulate clearly what we can offer and what we need.

Most urgently, we are calling for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme to be extended in line with furloughing, for all self-employed workers, and in the specific case of theatre and performance workers, until theatres are able to safely reopen. We also want to see criteria removed from the scheme which are stopping legitimate and much-needed claims.

Some of you are already involved in these conversations. We welcome your voices and need to hear from more of you in the conversations to come. Your unique networks, skillsets, perspectives, and ideas are vital to the entire sector, and we need to work with you in our response to this crisis.

Each of the organisations who’ve signed this letter are committed to reaching out to their family of self-employed and freelance theatre makers; listening to how this is affecting your work and lives, and to your needs and ideas for the future.

More than that, we want to facilitate the establishment of a national task force of self-employed theatre and performance makers. The purpose of the task force is to strengthen the influence of the self-employed theatre and performance community. It would create ongoing points of connection between freelancers and organisations, and amplify the voice of the self-employed in the conversations to come. To help establish the task force, each of the organisations signing this letter will support a freelancer to join the group, ensuring they are paid for their time.

We want to offer a message of hope and solidarity. Our well-practised ability to work together, to form connections, and build relationships will help us through this. One day, hopefully soon, we will all be able to meet together, as people have done for centuries, in a shared space, for a shared experience. In the meantime, we remain committed to working for you and with you towards a sustainable future for theatre and performance.

Signed,

Access All Areas

Action for Children’s Arts

The Almeida Theatre

ArtsAdmin

The Actors Touring Company

Battersea Arts Centre

Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Boundless Theatre

Brighton Festival

Bristol Old Vic

Brixton House

The Bush Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre

China Plate

Contact

Dance Umbrella

Derby Theatre

Eden Court Highlands

English Touring Theatre

Fio

Fuel

Gate Theatre

Graeae

HOME

Improbable

Kiln Theatre

Leeds Playhouse

Leicester Curve

The National Theatre

National Theatre of Scotland

National Theatre Wales

National Youth Theatre of Great Britain

The New Wolsey Theatre

Northern Stage

Nottingham Playhouse

One Dance UK

Paines Plough

Rose Theatre Kingston

Royal & Derngate

The Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Shakespeare Company

Sadler’s Wells

Sheffield Theatres

Spare Tyre

Talawa

Tangled Feet

The Yard

Theatre Peckham

Theatre Royal Plymouth

Tiata Fahodzi

Yellow Earth

1927

During the lockdown period with theatres closed, we have been keen to try and keep working with freelancers on creative projects to keep audiences engaged and entertained at home. From games to videos to audio projects, we have been trying to stay engaged with families and households across the UK.

We made an animated short called WHAT’S GOING ON, written by Megan Cronin, animated by Monica Leigh and voiced by Stephen Mangan and Daisy Haggard. The video is aimed at children, explaining in a playful way why we’ve all had to stay inside. Check it out in Watch & Listen.

We also commissioned extraordinary poet Muneera Pilgrim to write and perform a piece inspired by themes of isolation. Check out her piece Reiki here. Muneera also provided some poetry exercises so that people could generate their own spoken word pieces at home!

Poetry writing exercise #1 from Muneera Pilgrim:

Think of a theme. Defining themes work well, for example love. Write a list of about 10-15 things that love is to you: they can be words, short sentences, phrases – but it has to be personal to you. If you get stuck, questions to think about include: how does it feel, smell, taste, sound, look? Is it real or imagined? Is it metaphorical? How does it make your body respond? Does anyone know? Is it a secret?  Love is… sneaking a piece of jerk chicken out of the now browning dutch pot, yet knowing that if I was caught, it would be fine anyway.

Poetry writing exercise #2 from Muneera Pilgrim:

A) freewrite for 3 minutes: no over thinking! The only rule is don’t let your pen stop.  B) then another freewrite, this time focused on how you are feeling at the moment – same timeframe, 3 minutes. C) write one more freewrite focused on a material or a texture, e.g. soft, furry, thatched – again you have 3 minutes. Read back your freewrites, and pick out the lines that resonate with you the most. Gather all of those lines and order them to make an abstract poem.

Poetry writing exercise #3 from Muneera Pilgrim:

Open up a poetry book at a random page, and without paying too much attention pick a line in the middle of the poem. That is the opening line of your poem! Give yourself 15 minutes to write the rest of it. If you get stuck, choose another line to add to your poem.

Then, to mark Shakespeare’s birthday, Digital Theatre+ made the ETT, Oxford Playhouse and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory production of Othello available free on their educational platform as part of the second International Online Theatre Festival.

ETT-Othello-2018-Company_Image-Helen-Murray-1.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1600" />

We asked some of our artists and audiences to tell us their desert island plays – five pieces of drama they would take with them on a desert island. We were delighted with the responses (and added quite a few things to our reading list!).

Finally, the marvellous Frankie Bradshaw and Atri Banerjee put together a video for children to teach them how to build their own cardboard theatre at home, so they can play out stories for their families. You can watch the video in Watch&Listen.

Keep an eye on Latest News and on our Social Media for more updates on the work we’re making while theatres are closed. For our full statement on the COVID-19 pandemic, please click here.

We commissioned this beautiful poem in response to lockdown, all about visualising safety, growth, wellbeing and forgiveness by ETT Associate Artist Muneera Pilgrim.

Music by Mr Plexus and video editing by Craig Nom Chong.

The poem was put out in collaboration with OTR Bristol, a mental health social movement by and for young people.

Muneera also designed poetry exercises for people to try at home:

Exercise 1:
Think of a theme. Defining themes work well, for example love. Write a list of about 10-15 things that love is to you: they can be words, short sentences, phrases – but it has to be personal to you. If you get stuck, questions to think about include: how does it feel, smell, taste, sound, look? Is it real or imagined? Is it metaphorical? How does it make your body respond? Does anyone know? Is it a secret?  Love is… sneaking a piece of jerk chicken out of the now browning dutch pot, yet knowing that if I was caught, it would be fine anyway.

Exercise 2:
A) freewrite for 3 minutes: no over thinking! The only rule is don’t let your pen stop.  B) then another freewrite, this time focused on how you are feeling at the moment – same timeframe, 3 minutes. C) write one more freewrite focused on a material or a texture, e.g. soft, furry, thatched – again you have 3 minutes. Read back your freewrites, and pick out the lines that resonate with you the most. Gather all of those lines and order them to make an abstract poem.

Exercise 3:
Open up a poetry book at a random page, and without paying too much attention pick a line in the middle of the poem. That is the opening line of your poem! Give yourself 15 minutes to write the rest of it. If you get stuck, choose another line to add to your poem.

If you want to watch the video, go over to Watch & Listen and check it out.