EC: How do you plan to support script development and writers within the literary department as a whole?
BA: So how we will be working with and collaborating with artists as part of the literary plan is multifaceted, and we're right at the beginning of a journey with it where we're reintroducing a literary programme. I will caveat everything I say in that we are moving through a process, and we will probably change it over the course of the next few years as well. But essentially, we want the literary programme to offer opportunities for writers at every stage of their career, with categories for early career writers, mid-career writers and ‘legacy’ writers. At one end, we're shaping an early-careers writing programme which will take place over autumn and the winter. It will be peer led, and all about creating an inspirational space for young writers where they can develop their skills.
EC: And how will that programme work?
BA: It will be a multi-week programme that runs once a week. We want to keep it intimate, so we'll choose 4 to 8 writers every year, allowing it to be really focused and intensive. And when we talk about early career writers, we're talking more about early to the art rather than necessarily age, that's really important to us. So, with them it's more about that jumping off point and that platform. We're still figuring out the details, but we have a sense that we want those writers to have something to be working towards and to have an idea to explore, and we're very keen to shape a programme that is co-created and co-led with professional writers who are based here in the South West. We're trying to stay responsive to what is needed here and how that looks.
EC: What other opportunities are available to writers?
BA: We're also continuing to commission through our programme, and all opportunities will run through a mixture of open-call and curation. Our early careers writers programme will be an open-call to identify those writers and create the group. Whereas commissioning is a part open call and part closed space - sometimes we identify writers we want to work with or projects we want to commission, but we're also going to send out an open commissions process in July, where people can get in touch to submit their work and also to chat about their ideas. We offer three levels of commissioning: Seed grants, co-producing grants and then commissioning writers through our writer's guild agreement.
EC: How hands-on will BOV be in that process?
BA: Really hands on. We offer the golden triangle combination of money, time and space to support the artist. With seed grants and co-producing grants we'll run as invested a dramaturgical process as the artist or company want to have with us, but we always want to sit in the co-piloting seats with them. To use the experience and knowledge that we have in the building around dramaturgy, producing and fundraising and to lend that toolkit that we have as a large producing house to those pieces of work.
EC: What kinds of submissions are you on the lookout for?
BA: That's to be decided, I think. There are things true of us as a building which will be true of the way we find projects and there are things that are true of Bristol as a place and the audience that we serve that mean that there are certain things that are true of our programming and the artists that we work with. We're one of the largest producing houses in the South West, we have a particular responsibility to our locality, and we want to make sure that there is always a strong representation of artists based in or from the South West within all of our programmes, that's crucially important to us. We're really interested in new work, adaptations and new takes on the cannon as well. But we'll always resist specifically looking for certain themes because I think writers have some of the most brilliant ideas that can come completely left of field of what we might be expecting to programme, but that really hit on the past, contemporary and future presence that we're thinking about. We're also being really active in platforming currently underrepresented voices in terms of all of our writers, those who traditionally may not have received the same level of opportunities across the industry for a multitude of intersectional reasons.
EC: How should we stay in the loop regarding these opportunities?
BA: You'll be able to read about all our opportunities and how to get in touch with us on the website. You can also sign up to the Artists Forum which is a totally free and open space for artists to sign up to. They'll be emailed regularly about open opportunities and discounted tickets across our programme, as well as access a free community minded space that gathers artists together.