It has been a pleasure to run two ‘seeing the wood for the trees’ workshops for SpaceUK Companies during EdFringe. I used to have the pleasure of doing these for the Fringe Society open to all companies, but their programme has moved on/ re-focussed. Doing a workshop on Day 2 of a week long run at EdFringe is not the ideal time, but for some people it is the perfect time. They are here now. They are in the midst of the tangled web of the fringe and need some very very quick fixes to help them see pathways they can take immediately. I always enjoy these sessions, and the feedback I get suggests they are eyeopening and helpful.
Much more helpful is to meet with producers and aspiring companies many months, maybe even 18 months before they intend to mount a first production at EdFringe or off-West End or in one of the many UK festivals like Buxton, Brighton, Camden, Durham and Dundee.
Here are three ways aspiring/inspiring producers can gain an injection of challenge and information:
Join one of our Intensive London 4 day producing workshops. The next one is Fri 7th – Mon 10th Nov and then there is another planned Thur 19th-Sun 22nd March. Limited to 8 producers we explore the UK arts ecology, and look at marketing, fundraising, budgetting, team building and the process of creating and establishing work. https://www.chrisgrady.org/intensive-london-producing-course/
If you read this and you are in a University or College setting then CGO is happy to run a 2-3hr workshop Producing, Proper Job, Honest ! which uses open space to create a workshop agenda which draws on what you as a society, group, new company, and individual need to learn at this moment to move forward to produce professionally or in a professional/risk environment like Edinburgh.
And thirdly CGO is pleased to work with international agencies and government bodies on the development of skill base for local producers and creatives with the ambition to make work which has an international potential. We bring together UK and International experts in different fields to grow shared knowledge. Many seek to bring local IP to the West End or Broadway markets. Others want to build a cross-artform array of work celebrating contemporary writing and creativity, and then bring that work to festivals around the world. We have spent 4 years working with the Korean Arts Management Services. We have worked in Malaysia and China. This year we worked with JPASN the Japanese theatre producers network on a London and Edinburgh showcase of new work. We have run workshops with Portugese networks & the TRU network in New York. We are open to many conversations.
Professional Producers and programmers now have a private linked-in style networking site, Producers’ Persona which GO commissioned 18 months ago, and 150 producers from 12 countries are able to connect and share ideas. We look forward to working with them in the ongoing development of this Persona platform, and others. https://www.producerspersona.com/
We look forward to running an array of early workshops about EdFringe producing, along with exploring how we can help individual projects move forward. Let us know how we can help chris [at] chrisgrady [dot] org