The Foundation has established a three-year partnership with the National Theatre to support its Public Acts programme delivered across the country.
Through this partnership, our funding will support the delivery of the NT’s Public Acts programme, showcasing how the creative and social care sectors can work together on a national scale to make lasting impact in communities. Funding will support Public Acts to build community engagement across the country, create large-scale productions with community groups and support new research for the programme.
Public Acts is the NT’s nationwide initiative to create extraordinary acts of theatre and community. The programme produces ambitious new works of participatory theatre and is built on sustained partnerships with theatres and community organisations across the country who share our vision of theatre as a force for change.
The NT has been working with six community groups in Doncaster since 2019 to deliver weekly workshops with participants to help build confidence, learn new skills and build towards a celebratory musical production. The third Public Acts production, The Doncastrian Chalk Circle, will be taking place at Cast in Doncaster on 27th – 29th August, featuring over 100 local performers alongside professional actors.
To mark the fifth anniversary of Public Acts, a new multi-venue nationwide production of The Odyssey will also begin in April 2023. The Odyssey will be told in five episodes created and performed by artists and communities from four partner organisations: Cast in Doncaster, Sunderland Culture in partnership with Sunderland Empire Theatre in Sunderland, Restoke in Stoke-on-Trent and Trowbridge Town Hall in Trowbridge. The fifth and final episode will be staged on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre in August 2023, featuring community performers from all four nationwide companies as well as members recruited through partners Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and Trybe House Theatre in London.
