The story so far

It all started with a coffee in Manchester in the summer of 2023. I caught up with a senior colleague I first met at the start of my career and they asked “So what’s next for you?.” Kind of stumped for an answer, I said “I don’t know” (a bit embarrassing!) “but I will think about it and get back to you.” And I did exactly that. 

The next few months were spent in a period of reflection. I thought long and hard about my current portfolio of work and realised I had outgrown the freelance producer thing. I wanted to be even more intentional about my work, I wanted more freedom to discover exciting ideas and artists and I wanted my artistic input to be properly credited. Importantly, I wanted to put my in-demand experience, skills and expertise to where I could make a big impact. 

During this time I couldn’t help but notice that there was much less Black and Brown theatre being made and toured post-pandemic and how diversity and anti-racism pledges had quietly been forgotten about since 2020. I also thought about the problems of producing small scale work, the problems with touring and the increasingly challenging funding landscape - especially for Black and Brown-led organisations. 

I didn’t just think about problems. I also thought about what I was most passionate about and excited by. I realised I wanted to stay independent but I also wanted to work with venues. After all, it's a delicate ecosystem and we do all need one another. 

My other strong personal desire was to do something about the lack of infrastructure and artist support in my home town of Rochdale. When I was starting out, it simply wasn’t possible to start a theatre career here, and I would like to help change that. Talent is everywhere but opportunity is not, and I know Rochdalians are interesting, creative and friendly people. I also know that the city of Manchester soaks up a disproportionate amount of public arts funding compared to Greater Manchester, and this also needs to change. This change requires the development of a critical mass of artists, which I hope Future Theatre Makers will help create.

So, I designed a new producing model that would be developmental for the sector, taking some inspiration and learnings from other strategic projects that have come before and utilising my knowledge of venue producing, independent producing and artist development. Then I went in search of artists who I felt were super interesting but under-invested in, pitched the strategic three year project to venues and asked them for exactly what I needed - core funding and a programming commitment. I wanted to do it with appropriate resource, or not at all. 

Things started clicking into place, everyone I spoke to - artists and venue leaders alike said it was a great, well-thought through idea, that it should exist and I was the right person to lead it. I secured enough core funding and support to approach ACE for funding and was successful. It felt like all of my experience in the sector was leading me to this very point and when the universe is showing you the way, you have trust in the process…

P.S. I will be putting this into my evaluation somewhere but I want people to know: to do all of the prep work for a project of this scale and complexity, it took me 40 days of unpaid labour. It feels worth it now, but as a working class artist, this is not something I could do any more of. So if any major funder is reading this - I have great ideas that will make a profound impact, call me!