Whew! After two months of watching submissions fly in, applications to Plymouth Fringe Festival 2018 closed last Friday!
While, ideally, we would love to spend an entire year listening to the exciting plans that artists both near and far are hatching, the cruel reality of logistics has welded our letterbox shut for another eleven months or so*.
As in previous years, we’ve been inundated with fascinating applications from artists both near and far. We’ve heard from theatre-makers, performance artists, comedians, musician, dancers, storytellers and many others whose work sits between or beyond those boundaries, each with exciting pitches for work they’d like to bring to Plymouth in May.
It’s always exciting to hear what artists of all stripes are planning and the calibre of this year’s applications is a real testament to the journey that Plymouth Fringe Festival has been on over the past four years from plucky start-up to permanent fixture in Plymouth, the South West and the UK’s theatre calendar.
Emma is a Dancer Plymouth Fringe 2017
It also says a lot about our amazing, generous, risk-taking audiences that so many companies and artists are looking to return with a new show or have recommended the festival to friends and colleagues. As programmers, then, this is the part of the year where we look to pay that back by putting together a stunning, diverse, exciting programme to fuel the imaginations of those audience members in the Spring.
For the next few weeks then, along with the artistic teams at our fantastic partner venues Theatre Royal Plymouth, Barbican Theatre and Plymouth Conservatoire, we’ll be sifting through all these applications to piece together that very programme.
It’s sure to be another fantastic year for Plymouth Fringe (and we already have some particularly exciting developments that we’re itching to shout about!), so keep your eyes peeled here on our website or on our various social media channel to be the first to hear programme announcements.
*Well, although applications are only open from December to February each year, we’re actually always very keen to hear about what artists are up to and about their plans for the future. If you’d like to invite us along to a performance then drop a line to Matt on matt@wemaketoast.org
