Emerge Festival 2014 – Preview

As I sat down to interview Matt Burman and Laura Eliot, two thirds of the team that manage Warwick Art Centre’s programme, it occurred to me that they both looked remarkably relaxed for two people who work an insane amount of hours in order to ensure that the Centre continues to provide some of the best theatre that you will see anywhere. During the interview, Matt revealed that he had worked one hundred and sixty hours over the past two weeks, whilst Laura is regularly at her desk from nine o’clock in the morning until midnight. Clearly being Head of Programme and Audiences, or taking on the role of Programme Manager is not for the faint-hearted!

It seems to me that their efforts have really paid off as the theatre prepares to launch Emerge a new drama festival that, in Matt’s own words, “is about celebrating performance at Warwick”. This certainly seems to be reflected in the fact that five out of the ten companies involved feature current Warwick students or those who have recently graduated. Indeed, the programme showcases the ever-growing group of individuals that Matt calls the “Warwick Mafia”, which is made up of the many, many students who have left the university and gone on to have significant careers in the arts world.

With festivals like this it does not look like this level of graduate success in the Arts is about to change any time soon. Alongside Emerge, the Arts Centre will also be launching their new How To… programme. This will feature a series of workshops on topics such as marketing, directing and theatre design, as well as talks from professional company Forced Entertainment, who brought their latest show The Last Adventures to the Arts Centre at the beginning of October.

For really enthusiastic students there is the opportunity to take part in a whole day of activities related to theatre making with the session on Tuesday 28^th October. Starting at half past nine is a workshop from Fellswoop Theatre on the subject of politics and theatre, alongside a chance to see the company’s own work in their show Ablutions, an adaptation of Patrick deWitt’s novel to the Arts Centre on the night of the workshop. The day finishes with a performance from Fat Git Theatre of their show (i feel fine) written by Joe Whiteat a quarter to nine at night, and what is more you can purchase a day ticket to all of these events for as little as £3!

Other performances include The Pearl, and adaptation of John Steinbeck from the company Dumbshow who, according to their website, are “committed to telling powerful stories which explore the human condition with wit, charm and emotional impact.” The Boy who Kicked Pigs by Kill the Beast comedy quintet, who were founded in 2011, will be performed on Halloween night, and Barrel Organ, one of the newest Warwick graduate companies (winning four awards at last years’ National Student Drama Festival) will be exploring Nothing in a series of monologues on 29^th October in the Helen Martin Studio.

Fat Git, who are known for their innovative approaches to the process of new writing, are also establishing the GAIA Project in association with IATL which will see them employ current student writers to their collaborative team. Setting them tasks each week which will allow students to produce creative writing based on a scientific issue, this will eventually lead to a series of workshops in which the writing will be tested and eventually a performance in the Spring term. Matt was also keen to stress that Emerge and it’s workshops in particular has only been made possible through a “True collaboration with IATL”, and the support of co-facilitators Jonathan Heron (IATL), Dr Wallace MacDowell (of the Theatre and Performance Studies department) and Dr Rachel King (Course Leader for Drama and Theatre Education). It is his hope that next year this collaboration with IATL will continue to evolve and produce more workshops that look at the practice of theatre-making.

I finished by asking Matt how students could get the most out of the festival, and his advice simply was “to try and come and see all of it” in order to get a feel for the “broad and deep flavour of the richness of the work coming out of Warwick”. So try and sample as much as you can in the Arts Centre’s first festival which is created by past students for current students. And given the fact that watching seven of the shows will only cost you £28, it seems to fair to say that Warwick University Theatre has never been so thriving or so affordable.

The Emerge Festival runs from the 28^th to the 31^st October.