Earlier this year we launched the Boundless Drama Club – a home for our regular artistic support for young people and early career theatre makers. The Boundless Drama Club is a community, a place to learn new skills, and also a way to practise your creativity. We have learned over the years that getting started is the hardest thing for many young people, with information about careers, and how to develop new work and get opportunities for funding being hard to find. So, we collated it all and put it in one place.
Club membership
The club is free when you register with a membership profile, giving young people access to an online hub for original content, including podcast episodes with inspiring theatre makers and how-to guides from the Boundless team. Daily creative challenges, articles and opportunities for funding, and chances to meet up with fellow members, are also offered. In the short space of time since launching we've seen over 200 members join, and it has been so inspiring getting to know their ambitions and creative projects.
For any student with an interest in theatre, we'd encourage them to sign up and have a look around the site. Wherever you are in the UK, and regardless of how much experience or knowledge you have about any aspect of theatre, there's something here for you. We've also started testing in-person workshops and events, including the Theatre Jam which is a drop-in session for members (currently accessible to those in London), and a chance to meet other creative people and test out any of your ideas.
Virtual content
Also currently on the site are a series of video masterclasses that focus on how to generate new ideas as an introduction to storytelling. There's more of this sort of content to come, and we hope it will be useful for anyone around their studies – or even just those with a keen interest in writing or telling stories for performance. As we're aiming to reach our whole community of 15–25-year-olds, we aren't limiting the content in any way, and have plans for design and writing masterclasses alongside technical theatre and more career-based skills.
Daily challenges
We are also publishing articles and interviews with established artists who talk openly about their own journeys starting out, and inspire others to give everything a go, be bold and be brave, but above all keep practising being creative. With that, we put daily creative challenges on the site, so that members can use them as a prompt to do a daily creative exercise even when you might feel a bit blocked or uninspired. Crucial to the success of all of this has been the amazing dialogue our members have started with us. We have live chat functionality and the opportunity for members to speak with the Boundless team to help us better tailor our plans to the needs of the community.
How to join
Joining is really simple, just head to boundlessdrama.club and fill out a membership form, and you'll be sent login details and be able to access the site immediately. If you sign up separately to our community chat platform, you'll also be able to join other members on our message boards and conversation channels which is a great way to network or seek support or ask more specific questions. Recently we have offered £10,000 of funding to four artists for new work on the theme of ‘money’ through our Boundless Accelerator programme, and hosted Q&As and community chat to make sure everyone had the support they needed to apply.
At a time when access to resources and high-quality experiences and skills development are under threat and when it can feel impossible to access the industry after education, we hope that the Boundless Drama Club can be a big help. The Boundless team and our wider network of artists are keen to support as many early career and young theatre makers as possible over the coming years and I hope that by doing that in a friendly, safe and inclusive space we can support a whole new generation of theatre makers to get started.