RAW: Emerging Arts Platform

Exeter Northcott Theatre has announced an exciting collaboration with the University of Exeter Drama Department and Arts & Culture team to present RAW: Emerging Arts Platform.

In a new initiative from the two organisations, RAW is a platform for emerging choreographers, live artists and playwrights. It is an opportunity for Exeter Drama graduates to show exciting new work to a range of audiences, professional artists, programmers and organisation representatives; a place to share knowledge, skills and ideas.

Tuesday, 11 June will showcase two works of new writing.

Notes on Some Persons, Starting to Crack, written and performed by Gareth Morgan, tells the story of David, who has something to say about love, loss and glaciology. ‘Notes...’ is one man's struggle with being alive and how to embark on a journey without an actual destination.

If it's Not One Thing, it's Another, written by Adam Foster, is an unusual and moving coming-of-age story about dealing with the terrifying prospect of change. Rosie has lived in the same house all her life, with her Dad, by the train tracks in rural Devon. But when her dad dies she becomes obsessed with the online community and grows isolated from the outside world.

Wednesday 12 June will present mixed performances.

The protagonist in Attempt, written and directed by Viki Browne, can’t cook, can’t build flat pack furniture, and can’t really tell jokes. But she can make lists! Using some text from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and poetry by Anne Sexton, she attempts to convey her experiences to other people.

Sleep When You Die, co-directed by Hannah Kamen and Kirsty Proffitt, devised and performed by Laura Doble, Hannah Kamen, Takehiro Kawase, Kirsty Proffitt and Verity Richards, combines physical theatre with testimony speech, in order to address some of the myths and facts about sleep. Should we be worrying about a lack of sleep? We spend a third of our life being unproductive, unsociable and keeping others awake by snoring.  Perhaps more appropriately we should concentrate on the fact that, thanks to sleep, we are life deprived.

Thursday 13 June will showcase physical theatre shows.

The Summit, directed by Alice Higginson & Sian Keen, takes a fractured view of an athlete's life from training on a rainy morning, to intrusive media interviews and memories of childhood grazes from falling off her tricycle. Follow 'The Athlete' through the blood, sweat and tears that come with the drive to win, the pressure to succeed, the fear of failure and the suffering family life that simmers away in the background.

Natasha Lushetich, University of Exeter Drama Lecturer, said: “I am thrilled that RAW, a collaboration between the Northcott Theatre and the Drama Department, University of Exeter, is taking place. This is an excellent opportunity for our graduates to show exciting new work to wider audiences and exchange ideas with other professionals in the field.”

Additionally on Wednesday 12 June, the University of Exeter Drama Department and Exeter Northcott Theatre are delighted to present Funding Not Drowning: The Crisis in Regional Arts Funding. Professor Christopher Frayling, the Chairman of Arts Council England from 2005 until January 2009, will discuss the future of funding of the arts, with a particular focus on the problems of allocation of funding between regional and national organisations.

This will be followed by a conversation about arts funding, led by Professor Frayling and Professor Helen Taylor, University of Exeter Arts and Culture Fellow, where there will also be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions and share their views.

A Raw Deal day pass is available to buy, enabling you to see all performances on Wednesday 12 June, attend the Sir Christopher Frayling lecture, and enjoy a buffet supper.

For more information and to book tickets, please visit www.exeternorthcott.co.uk

Tickets: £3 per show; £5 for 2 shows.

There will be feedback sessions at the end of each performance.