Michael Grandage has announced the recipients of the fifth annual MGCfutures Bursaries awarded across a range of theatrical disciplines including directing, writing, producing, designing, choreography, digital, casting and performance-makers. A registered charity, MGCfutures offers both financial and ongoing mentoring support to the recipients who come from across the UK.
This year, in a major expansion to the bursary programme, there are thirty-three recipients: Waleed Akhtar, Tom Bellerby, Rebecca Brewer, Teresa Burns, Ghost Chan, Zhui Ning Chang, Liz Daramola, Beth Flintoff, burn/gobscure, Sam Hardie, Natalie Haslam, Kitty Hawkins, Courtenay Johnson, Eve Kann, Júlia Levai, Tom Lightbody, Rafaella Marcus, Tony Mills, Will Monks, Madelaine Moore,
Laurie Motherwell, Anna Orton, Nisha Oza, Claire Rimington, Luke W. Robson, Nye Russell-Thompson, Lucía Sánchez Roldán, Amber Sinclair-Case, Freya Smith, Lexie Ward, Naomi Westerman, Christopher Worrall and Lilac Yosiphon – taking the total of MGCfutures’ bursaries awarded to over 100 in just five years. This year’s bursaries include new partnerships with the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre for a Literary Associate (Trainee) and Pilot Theatre for two Creative Assistants.
Michael Grandage said today, “This year it feels more vital than ever before to support and nurture the theatre makers of the future and to create new work by offering them money, time and mentorship. I’m enormously proud of the achievements of our past bursary recipients – to witness their work and growth as artists is a wonderful part of this initiative. The charity continues to support the vast network of jobs that make up the whole theatre ecology as we believe it is only this way we can build an industry for the future. We’re grateful to the Theatre Community Fund whose generosity has enabled us to award our largest ever number of bursaries in honour of the fifth anniversary of the scheme.”
Michael Grandage founded MGCfutures in 2013 – a charity designed to encourage and support the next generation of theatre-makers and theatregoers. The bursaries programme was launched in 2016, and reaches out across the UK to seek the very best creative talent showing a commitment to their chosen career and looking to progress to the next stage of their development. Applicants can apply for bursaries of up to £5000.
The expansion of this year’s bursaries to celebrate their fifth anniversary has been made possible due to the generosity of the Theatre Community Fund, spearheaded by Olivia Colman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Francesca Moody which has donated £300k to MGCfutures to help support and provide bursaries for the next 3 years. When they launched the Theatre Community Fund in July 2020 in response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, they committed to provide hardship funding, and bursaries for creation and innovation. They continue to provide hardship funding through the Royal Theatrical Fund; and this donation sees them realise their aim to provide funding for bursaries.
