TOTAL THEATRE MAGAZINE
Call-out – Artist as Writers
A free mentoring and training programme in writing skills for artists and theatre makers, led by Total Theatre Magazine’s editors
Are you an artist/theatre maker keen to develop your writing skills? Are you interested in exploring writing about art and theatre making, past and present? Do you want to think more systematically about how we write about alternative theatre and performance practice?
As a follow-on to our National Lottery Heritage Fund project Total Theatre Archive: Preserving 30 Years of UK Performance History, the Total Theatre Magazine editorial team are offering a series of free workshops and one-to-one mentoring sessions for a new cohort of contemporary theatre/performance artists interested in exploring writing about their own and other people’s alternative artistic practices. The project will commence 1 September and run for 12 weeks.
Total Theatre Magazine champions artist-led critical writing, putting the practitioner at the heart of the discourse about their own work and the work of their peers. For the past thirty years the magazine, first in print and now online, has played a crucial role in promoting and championing alternative theatre practice in the UK, celebrating and supporting physical and visual theatre, circus, street arts, puppetry, performance & live art, queer arts, interactive work, and more. The TTM site can be viewed at www.totaltheatre.org.uk The archive is at totaltheatre.org.uk/archive
The mentorship will include workshops in writing skills (on Zoom) plus a one-to-one writing development plan to include mentoring sessions to support the artists involved via whatever medium works best for each individual, and editorial guidance and feedback delivered by email. The project will result in the writing of an extended essay/article, to be published by Total Theatre Magazine.
There will be three potential strands to the research:
Reflecting on and writing about the artist’s own journey and current practice
Research into the work of other artists, companies, organisations, or artforms/strands of practice (contemporary or historic) that the artist has a particular interest in – with reference to the Total Theatre Archive and/or other archives or resources
Reflection on the response by artists to the Covid-19 epidemic
Please note this is a voluntary participatory project, offering free training and mentoring. No prior writing experience is necessary, simply a committed interest in exploring your own practice.
How to Apply:
Please send a short letter (200-300w) telling us about your artistic background, where you’re based, and why you’d like to take part. Include an image of you or your work.
We would like to ensure that we mentor a good cross-section of artists of all sorts in the project, so would appreciate knowing if you identify as BAME, or D/deaf or disabled, or LGBTQ+, or if you feel that you are a member of an under-represented group that needs more visibility!
Send applications to editor Dorothy Max Prior: max@totaltheatre.org.uk
Applications now closed. Successful applicants will be contacted by 14 August 2020.
