Locked Down, Looking Up and 2.0 Fest online festival from The Space
Sarah Lambie
Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Space has announced a new online writing festival, alongside workshops, play readings and a theatre club
The Space has announced a new programme of events and play readings to support new writers and an online festival of duologues.
2.0 Fest will see 8 playwrights commissioned to create new duologues to be performed online. The duologues will be streamed live on 31stJuly and 1stAugust and recorded for future distribution throughout lockdown.
Locked Down, Looking Up will see 10 playwrights receive an online reading of their new plays, 6 directors develop and deliver 30 online workshops and 3 theatre companies perform online versions of shows that were due to perform at the Space.
The final strand of the programme is the newly created Space Theatre Club, like a book club but participants watch theatre online and then meet to discuss.
Since going into lockdown, the Space has been supporting theatre-makers and engaging audiences with online play readings and workshops. An emergency grant from the Arts Council has enabled them to expand their programme.
The commissioned 2.0 Fest playwrights are: Grace Chapman, Arthur Cole, Annie Fox, Francis Grin, Laura Horton, Gemma Lawrence, Kate Reid and Luke Stapleton.
The ScriptSpace playwrights and plays are: Natalie Baker (The Grinding Stone), Abigail Chandler (Adults), Katie Duncan (Refuge), Sam Essame (The Door), Emma Griffiths (Newbie), Katharine Jee (Book Club), Lekha Desai Morrison (Misfits), C.J. Scuffins (The Golden Dawn), Dan Shaw (Loose Lips) and Matt Wixey (A Huddle of Penguins).
Artistic Director Adam Hemming says: 'We’re delighted to receive this backing from the Arts Council. Our aim has been to promote positive mental health through engaging creatively with theatre online. The feedback we’ve had so far has been that what we’re doing is valued and important, so we’re excited to have the opportunity to deliver even more.
There is some amazing theatre available to watch online, but we missed being able to chat about them in the bar afterwards. The wonderful thing about the Theatre Club is that it brings together all of our stakeholders – audience members, participants and theatre-makers. We invite special guests from the productions to join us and have had the pleasure of talking to established names like Patsy Ferran, Nina Raine and Lizzie Clachan.'