Time to reflect upon a busy 2024 and our 50^th anniversary celebrations...

our 50^th Anniversary year

Model Village: 50th anniversary rural tour

We finished off 2023 and kicked off our 50^th anniversary year with a rural tour of Model village by Anita Sullivan where audiences fell in love with the big and miniature world of the story which explored anarchy and rebellion in an idyllic 1930s model village. 

★★★★★ "Compounding entertainment and food for thought, Model Village embodies its message about the small carrying power" The Indiependent

"Thoughtful, kind, authentic theatre that genuinely connects to audiences and safely discusses relevant questions in our society. Bloomin’ love it" Audience member, Grimsby

Memories

As part of our 50th anniversary, we were eager to collect memories from people who have been part of New Perspectives journey over the last 50 years to hear what New Perspectives means to them and to reminisce about any stories they remember.

Here are some of our highlights from our conversations:

• Actors John Askew and Elizabeth Twells' crazy farm photoshoot for Harvest (2017) and their love story after meeting on the set of Darkness, Darkness (2016)
• Rick Hall remembers the time he campaigned against a funding cut for New Perspectives in the 1980s
• Chris Kirkwood's story of how the 2010 production of Farm Boy came about
• Tyrone Huggins recounting the chaotic first day of rehearsals for The Honey Man (2012) and how he ended up starring in his own play
• Cathy Mahmood reminiscing about what New Perspectives was like back in the early 2000s when we were based at The Old Library, Basford

NP50 Podcast

Our current Artistic Director spoke to former Artistic Directors Helen White, Gavin Stride, Daniel Buckroyd and Jack McNamara as well as prolific NP playwright Amanda Whittington for our NP50 Podcast which explores the artistic landscape during the tenure of each Artistic Director and stories of New Perspectives history.

Deep Dive into the Archive and Postcards Collection

In April 2024, we visited the New Perspectives archive at the University of Nottingham to have a look through past productions and to find stories about the last half-century at the company.

From this, wecompiled some themed lists of past productions which you can view on our blog and also created our NP50 Postcard Collection featuring artwork from productions. You can buy our Postcard Collection on our online shop here.

 

Make Good: The Post Office Scandal

Then in autumn 2024, we toured Make Good: The Post Office Scandal as a co-production with Pentabus to celebrate 100 combined years of rural touring between the two theatre companies. The Make Good tour was made up of 28 performances in rural venues and theatres across the country and was watched by around 2,500 people across the tour.

Directly informed by interviews with sub-postmasters, the play told the story of innocent sub-postmasters who had their lives torn apart and faced bankruptcy, isolation, and jail for crimes that were never committed and was well received by reviewers and audiences.

★★★★★ "Fortune and O'Hare have truly created a masterpiece" A Youngish Perspective

★★★★★ "A beautifully moving piece with a bright and electric future" The Revue

★★★★ "Make Good is more than a musical – it is a call to action and a tribute to courage, resilience, and community" Small House Big Trips

TALENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

New Associates

Over the last year we have supported 18 New Associates on our 2024/25 cohort and continued to support our 52 New Associates Alumni. This support has amounted to 113 hours of masterclasses, online sessions and theatre trips, 240 hours of 1-to-1 mentoring and 25 drafts of scripts read.

We have also supported on 6 Arts Council England Develop Your Creative Practice and 5 National Lottery Project Grant applications across our current cohort of New Associates and our Alumni amounting to £222,000 of funding for freelancers.

During our mid-point survey of the current cohort, we asked the New Associates what they thought of the programme so far and here is what they had to say:

“Everything I’ve done in the last 6 months is due to being seen, valued, encouraged as an artist. I believe in myself again because of being a New Associate. I had lost direction. I’m on fire now!”

“I have been given such a wide scope of learning already about the theatre industry - I've learnt about avenues that I never knew existed”

“[It's] like being part of an amazing club - supportive, inspiring and interested in you as a person/artist”

You can find out more about the New Associates talent development programme here.

 

Open Pitch

Each year we support two East Midlands-based first-time artists to tell a story in an creative way through a collaboration with established artists.

Black Diamond Dancers

Throughout the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, we supported the script development of a debut play written by Derbyshire resident Susie Brig. Set in the 1960s and 80s, Black Diamond Dancers follows a group of female friends in a jive club with the backdrop of the miner's strike and political tensions at the time.

As part of the Open Pitch process, Susie had months of writing support from our Participation Director Jayne Williams and a series of script development days with five actors made up of our wonderful New Associates and New Perspectives' Artistic Director Angharad Jones to support Susie in the completion of her first script.

Since the end of her Open Pitch experience, Susie called New Perspectives "a rare dramatic treasure in the East Midlands for encouraging and supporting new creative talent" and is now working on a new script.

Memoirs of a Little ‘Un

Writer Chrissy Payne paired up with actor Tanya Myers and sound designer Adam McCready to produce the Memoirs of a Little 'Un audio series based on her childhood growing up as the youngest of seven girls in 1960s Oakham, Rutland. 

Since its release in June, the audio series has been downloaded over 750 times and has been listened to by people in the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Honduras.

On her experience of Open Pitch, Chrissy wrote in a blog post on our website: "Having been selected for Open Pitch has worked for me on so many levels. My work is at last read by the professionals, not just dismissed. [...] I can't predict what the future holds in this highly competitive industry, but for me, any personal success will be due in large part to the support I've received from New Perspectives."

Alford Stories

Our Participation Director Jayne Williams worked with residents of Lincolnshire market town Alford to create a podcast. This audio adventure explores every day life in a bustling market town at the edge of the Lincolnshire wolds.

You can read about Jayne's reflections on the project here.

And listen out for it in 2025.

We've also started working on our next two Open Pitch projects with Leicester-based writer Chris Kealey and working class academic and activist Lisa Mackenzie so keep your eyes peeled for more on those projects in early 2025!

digital innovation

WHERE I BELONG LIVE!

Live readings from the Where I Belong podcast at Lakeside Arts Centre in June. Audiences enjoyed six live readings from the 12-episodes series, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Nottingham City of Literature Director Hannah Trevarthen. The readings were interspersed with lively discussions from writers Andy Barrett, Mufaro Makubika, Georgina Wilding, Michael Pinchbeck, Leanne Moden with Sadek R. Mohammed on screen via a live link from Baghdad. 

Immersive exploration

Artist Director Angharad Jones found out about all things immersive this year with actor and writer Michael Lambourne and sound designer Adam P McCready. We were welcomed to the superb University of Nottingham’s VIP (Video Immersive Production) studio and played around with binaural sound, volumetric capture and motion capture technologies. Watch this space to see how this project develops!

 

new for 2025!

In February 2025 we will be embarking on our next tour, (the) Woman, which will be visiting theatre venues across the country. Find out where your nearest performance is here.

Written by Jane Upton (Finding Nana (2017/18) & Watching The Living (2014)), (the) Woman follows M who is returning to work after having a child, trying to live up to the unrealistic expectations placed on modern mothers, and maintain her own identity all at the same time.

 

Thank you for joining us for this special celebratory year.