The Actors Centre has announced that its Graduate Festival — a week-long festival to support graduates whose final drama school showcases were cancelled due to Covid-19 — will run online from Monday 2 November – Sunday 8 November. Presented by The Actors Centre and curated by Ameena Hamid Productions, the Graduate Festival, will feature work from one hundred graduates, and provide an essential platform to showcase their talent to the industry and public.
Graduates from drama schools including Bristol Old Vic, Central School of Speech and Drama, Guildford School of Acting, Mountview, Royal Welsh School of Music and Drama, Italia Conti, Rose Bruford College, Royal Academy of Music, Manchester School of Theatre and many more will perform their showcases on the stage of the Tristan Bates Theatre with each showcase available to stream on-demand for one week from 2 November.
Speaking about the Graduate Festival, Mitchell Reeve, Theatre Programme Manager at The Actors Centre said: “When our industry shut down overnight due to Covid-19, at The Actors Centre, we knew we needed to find new ways of working to continue our support for emerging talent. Following on from the sold out live run of Gemma Lawrence’s Sunnymead Court, which marked the first new socially distanced theatre production back in the West End in over six months, we are delighted to continue shining a light on the creative talent at the heart of our sector.
“The Graduate Festival was created to provide a crucial platform for drama school graduates of 2020, many of whom didn’t get to experience that all-important final showcase because of the pandemic. We hope that this festival will go some way towards restoring this opportunity, as well as serve to amplify and promote these incredibly talented graduates. With the entire festival available to stream on-demand, it also provides an additional opportunity for graduates’ work to be seen on the international stage.”
Curator Ameena Hamid said: “It has been fantastic working with The Actors Centre on the Graduate Festival. We were always committed to ensuring that it would happen, not least due to the huge number of submissions from graduates who had missed out on the vital opportunity to perform their final year showcases. It truly feels like the light in the darkness for 2020 graduates and it is amazing to give them this opportunity and showcase such a brilliant range of talent from young graduates.”
The Graduate Festival runs from 2 – 8 November, with tickets priced at £8 and available from Monday, 2 November when a full line-up of graduates will also be released.
