ETT, today announces Trailer Story – a travelling outdoor performance space touring across the UK presenting national and local artistic programming and community events, finding a safe, joyous, and locally focused way to bring people together in public spaces to celebrate theatre. The project is inspired by ETT’s origins as Century Theatre, who toured the UK in a pop-up space, and will tour to Newcastle and Keswick in July and August 2021, in partnership with Northern Stage and Theatre by the Lake.

Trailer Story will present weekend-long programmes of events, performances and community happenings across the UK, beginning with a residency in Newcastle city centre 30 July – 1 August, with support from NE1 Ltd, and Crow Park in Keswick 5-8 August, with support from the National Trust. Performances will be housed in a touring truck, usually used to tour production sets around the country, but reimagined as a space for artists and audiences to meet, built with sustainability at its core and allowing for socially-distanced performances.

TRAILER STORY
Newcastle 30 July – 1 August 2021
Keswick 5 – 8 August 2021

The anti-racism rider and toolkit is launched today as a step towards more equitable working conditions for touring shows and events. In response to personal testimonies and feedback from over 100 freelancers, Co-ordinated by a group of 15 national touring theatre companies, and spearheaded by Amanda Huxtable, Rowan Rutter (HighTide), Richard Twyman (English Touring Theatre) and Lian Wilkinson (New Earth Theatre), the rider and accompanying checklist offers a series of actions for anti-racist practice, giving a framework to establish the baseline of expectations and support between stakeholders on a touring production.

https://antiracismtouringrider.co.uk/

The events of 2020 only highlighted the need for change within the industry, and the importance of standardising practice across the UK to safeguard companies, productions and venues paving the way for greater equality and safe practice. The rider seeks to foster closer working relationships between companies and venues, with the intention of providing a standard of care and commitment both from the theatres and producers.

Amanda Huxtable, Rowan Rutter, Richard Twyman and Lian Wilkinson said today,
“After months of consultation and pooling of collective knowledge, we publish the rider today in good faith. We believe it will effect tangible change in the improvement of working conditions within the industry and offer a toolkit for better working practice for all. The rider is designed to be for everybody, and used by everybody, complementing existing anti-racism work within the sector or providing a starting point for those beginning to implement anti-racism actions in their practice. We hope that it will also serve as an act of encouragement and support for all who have worked tirelessly over the years. Change is needed. The change is now.”

The rider – the first practical toolkit for change offered from within the industry – is backed by companies in the National Touring Network including 20 Stories High, Actors Touring Company, China Plate, Eclipse Theatre, English Touring Theatre, Fuel, Graeae, HighTide, Improbable, New Earth Theatre, Northern Broadsides, Stockroom, Paines Plough, Pentabus Theatre, Pilot Theatre, Tamasha and Theatre Centre, alongside Sheffield Theatres, HOME Manchester, UK Theatre, Independent Theatre Council, and Inc Arts.

On reading the rider, Keith Saha, Co-Artistic Director of 20 Stories High, said,
“The Anti- Racism Touring Rider is a game changer for the arts. For artists, participants, audiences and staff. For years we have been battling systemic racism formally and informally on a personal and an organisational level. This blueprint not only helps ease the emotional and psychological burdens we have been carrying as people of colour, but also offers venues support aswell as holding them to account. Change is coming.”

Amanda Parker of Inc Arts added,
“Inc Arts welcomes the Anti-Racism Touring Rider: it’s vital that there is shared and widespread understanding of our collective expectations and our responsibilities in all our places of work and the Rider makes this clear. It’s why we are pleased to include the recommendations of the Rider in Unlock so that we can help track and chart sign up and engagement with it in all touring practices throughout the cultural and creative sector.”

Touring companies, venues and freelancers across the country fed into the consultation process for the rider, resulting in a 8-page document detailing actions and suggestions that producers and venue managers commit to when touring a show. It has been compiled with the aim it is applicable to any touring production or company, irrespective of scale or remit, and covers actions to be used as a baseline leading up to touring. It provides a 360-approach encompassing all aspects of the production – from the first engagements with venues, wellbeing and pastoral care, marketing, and throughout all aspects of the run. The rider is one of the actions listed on Unlock, an anti-racism toolkit from Inc Arts for recruitment, leadership and the workplace.

Join Muneera & Rakaya at 19:30, Wednesday December 16th for a free evening of light discussion and poetry with the Poets featured in the Hold Me Back collection hosted by Tina Charisma.

In October they gathered 10 poets to respond to the themes in Michaela Coel’s daring & heart wrenching, ‘I May Destroy You’. From discussions on rape & consent to the social media age, this collaboration features ten new works of poetry by ten of the most exciting poets working today.

Zoom Tickets – Wednesday December 16th

ETT’s Trailer Story

2020 Big Give Christmas Campaign

English Touring Theatre joins #christmaschellange20 announcing a campaign our new project, TRAILER STORY.

This will be a moving arts festival that will exist as a connector, touring to localities with low cultural provision and knitting together increasingly isolated communities. The truck will be a performance space for the communities we visit, offering a curated programme of work as well as space for the community to unleash their creativity upon. We will work to support the improved mental health and wellbeing of the local residents by bringing people together through shared participatory experiences.

Raising money via the Big Give is time limited, as the campaign closes on Tuesday 08 December.
Please take a look at our campaign; ETT 2020 Big Give Christmas Campaign.

Please donate if you can and spread the message on your social channels, using the hashtag #christmaschallenge20 and please tag @ETTtweet

Help us get back on the road!

ETT today announces Phoenix, an audio drama, written in rapid response to the present moment, by Mike Bartlett and read by Bertie Carvel, Olivier Award winners, who previously collaborated on the BBC’s Doctor Foster. Sound design by Max Ringham.

The production is part of Signal Fires, a project conceived by ETT and Headlong to bring together over forty of the UK’s leading touring companies to tour an idea at a time when traditional touring isn’t possible. Phoenix is released on Thursday 5 November at 6pm, here on our website and social media channels ahead of a release on iTunes and Spotify.

As England enters its second lockdown, here’s a story that lays bare the destructive nature of ego and imagines how we came to be here. Phoenix is a story about fire and destruction; about deceit and the corrosion of trust; about interrogating the tension between our collective responsibility and individual desires.

Our plans to gather live audiences around fires for evenings of storytelling have had to be postponed due to national Coronavirus restrictions so here’s a story for our times to enjoy at home.

Be advised: Strong Language

Richard Twyman, Artistic Director and Sophie Scull, Executive Producer of ETT, said today,

“As we head into a second lockdown, we’re excited to be able to offer this short story by Mike Bartlett that explores the destructive nature of ego and the corrosion of truth. We were originally due to produce a live storytelling event for an audience gathered around a fire, as part of Signal Fires. But as we’re unable to gather in person, Mike wrote a new piece, set by a fire, for audiences to enjoy at home. Performed by the extraordinary Bertie Carvel we hope audiences can sit back, light a candle or a fire and listen to this offering for Bonfire Night and the dark evenings ahead.”

Maybe We Should All Be Less Afraid of the Dark, an open-air fireside storytelling event written and performed by Alissa Anne Jeun Yi, was due to run at Betteshanger Park, Deal on Saturday 7 November as part of Signal Fires 2020. Due to national Coronavirus lockdown measures, the performance has been cancelled and will be rescheduled as soon as possible.

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.