Futures Festival
27th November - 16th December 2023 at Pleasance London
A festival of work-in-progress shows
About the Festival
Futures Festival showcases developing productions from leading independent performance makers and companies.
The festival is curated by Pleasance Associate Artists and each week is looking to feature three different shows exploring a theme of our current times:
Week 1 - The Future Is Thirsty AF with Louise Orwin
A week of performances with a focus on social media, shifting paradigms, multimedia and the climate crisis.
Week 2 - The Future Is Queer with Sweet Beef
A week of performance by queer theatremakers pushing formal boundaries to create interactive work from drag and cabaret to formally experimental work.
Week 3 - The Future Is Violet with Papergang Theatre Company
A week of character driven work that challenges tokenism and rises above marginalisation.
Each year Pleasance commits to supporting six London based theatre makers/writers for a two year residency as our Associate Artists, providing them with the transformative tools to take their work and craft to the next level. We asked them to curate a festival based around themes of their choosing. Futures Festival is the result!
We're looking for independent performance makers and companies to be part of the festival.
Applications are now open to theatre makers to perform during the three themed weeks outlined above. You'll be showcasing your work in progress show for a week during the period of 27th November - 16th December 2023 at Pleasance London.
What do you get?
As part of the week you get:
- 2 performances and 100% of the box office revenue for the show
- Technician provided by the Pleasance
- 1 day of rehearsal space
Futures Festival takes place in our Studio and each night you can expect to perform alongside the other curated shows in your given week. Shows must be a maximum of 60 minutes in length and there is a 30 minute shared turnaround between each show, with this in mind your show needs to be easily strikable with a compact set. While a work in progress festival, shows need to have had some development ahead of making an application be this a reading, R&D or scratch.
Applications for Futures Festival 2023 are now closed
As reference, you can find a .doc and .pdf version of the application form as well as our information pack for 2023 here.
If you have any questions about this opportunity, please get in touch on [email protected]
Futures Festival is supported by The Leche Trust & Noël Coward Foundation.