Since we launched our website, Facebook and Twitter two days ago we’ve been bowled over by the amount of support, enthusiasm and excitement everyone’s shown for the first Plymouth Fringe Festival in May 2015. Over the next few months leading up to the festival, we’re going to be keeping a blog here on our website to give you a glimpse of what goes into putting a festival such as this together. It’ll also mean you can get to know the people who are putting in the hours to make sure this is a huge event for live performance in Plymouth.
Plymouth Fringe Festival is being produced by Toast. We’re a new theatre development organisation for Plymouth working to create a vibrant and sustainable theatre scene in the city. Toast is made up of Beth Shouler, Matt Hall, Tom Nicholas and Dan Baker. Previously we’ve been behind Theatre Uncut 2014 in Theatre Royal Plymouth‘s The Lab and also curated the City Gate venue at 2014’s Ignite Festival in Exeter. Between us we’ve also made lots of exciting things happen in a personal capacity. If you see us about before/during/after the festival then do come up and tell us what you’re looking forward to seeing/are about to see/have seen and we’d love to have a chat!
Beth Shouler and Matt Hall
Tom Nicholas and Dan Baker
As four theatre makers based in Plymouth, the idea for this festival came about because we were keen to dedicate a week to celebrating all kinds of live performance, giving South West audiences an opportunity to see exciting, cutting edge work and artists (from near or far) an opportunity to visit and perform in our fine city.
We’re hugely looking forward to piecing together this festival over the coming months and our first job is perhaps the most exciting. On Saturday we launched the application process for theatre and performance companies and makers who’d like to bring a production or piece of work to the festival. We’ll be keeping an eye on all the exciting proposals as they come rolling in before the application window closes on Friday 27th February. After that we have the, perhaps less enviable, task of choosing between all these shows and pairing them with our amazing partner venues to give audiences an amazing festival experience.
If you’d like to keep up-to-date or help us spread the word then do check back here or find us on Facebook and/or Twitter. We’re hugely looking forward to sharing this festival with you all.
