Hello and welcome to the new look newsletter! As we mentioned in our last theatre email, we’re slightly changing the way we communicate to align with other Take Art activity.
So, as well as hearing about theatre news, you can also see what’s happening in Rural Touring, Dance, Early Years and Cultivate. As many of our projects connect and share similar themes, we hope you’ll like this new format.
For this first newsletter, we thought we’d reflect on some events from the last twelve months or so. Despite it being a particularly challenging period, a lot of good things have happened!
BARN as a collective theatre initiative has now come to an end. We’re very appreciative of the support given by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation over the last six years or so. We'd also like to say a big thank you to the network of individuals, companies and venues across the county who have worked so creatively and tenaciously to help build and support the theatre-making sector in Somerset – and continue to do so!
BARNfest at Taunton Brewhouse in March 2022 celebrated and showcased work made in Somerset and the South West region. It included the Venues South West Symposium, a female-led artists panel that facilitated some rich debate and discussion around how we can best respond to living in and working in a world impacted by Covid.
Last summer, through BARN, we were able to create a Growth Fund, which supported several new theatre projects across Somerset. Nearly a year on we’re delighted that all the projects came to fruition, including several new shows that have now moved onto the next stage of their development or, indeed, have now been on tour.
Last October we facilitated Journey Exchange, an intergenerational, international project that brought together local people from Burnham and Highbridge, Somerset theatre-makers and artists from Hungary, Germany and Romania. We hosted our European colleagues as part of the RIOTE3 project that we’re a partner in.
Also last October, Sarah Peterkin, Co-Director of Theatre and Director of Rural Touring, retired. Since then, Katy Tilley and Ruth Copping have joined Mark Helyar as part of the theatre team. If you’d like to contact any of us, theatre@takeart.org is the best email address to use in the first instance.
For future newsletters, we may occasionally be able to promote other events and opportunities. So, if you have something that you’d like to be included on the next mail-out, please fill in this link with full details by Wednesday, 20 July.
In the meantime, all good wishes from:
Mark, Katy and Ruth
Take Art Theatre team