Autumn / Winter 2023

Well, what a year it has been. We cannot believe it has been 17 months since dear Sarah Davey Hull died. We have only just brought ourselves to updating this news section that she last wrote for.

We thought it a good time to look back on what has been achieved over these months. Of course, we have just finished a hugely positive period for BOLD, by creating a pop up theatre in our Undercroft and putting on our ‘underground panto’, The Foreigners’ Panto, by BOLD associate, Shani Erez. It was pure joy to invite in diverse audiences and witness the moving emotions from hilarity to tears as this political, satirical and joyful piece of theatre unravelled. All achieved happily with a cast made up of first & second gen immigrants – all paid above Equity minimum – a must for BOLD and an achievement in the current times! Do see our performance page! “Serving a ridiculous camp, hefty middle finger to the state of the country – this is pantomime at its finest” (The Review Hub****)

BOLD delivered another richly rewarding BOLD Playwrights Award 22/23 with Francis Grin & Louis Rembges winning and further developing their plays, Lucy & the VR Gods and It’s Raining on Prom Night respectively. Our winners from last year, Aaron Kilercioglu, Leila Nashef and Jaisal Marmion – have gone on to sell out at the Bristol Old Vic, developed research on the ethical challenges of staging trauma and become a Jermyn St creative associate – amongst developing new scripts for film, stage, opera & TV. We are delighted to still be collaborating in their careers with Jaisal rehearsing his new show, Boy in da Korma, and Aaron also rehearsing here at BOLD.

In Jan to March we went on to develop our inaugural BOLD Makers Award, designed specifically for devisers and collaborators. It included creatively looking at access and providing a terrific film maker, Will Hazell, to help make trailers or short films for each company. Huge thanks to our collaborators, Ray Young, Ben Wilson, Figs in Wigs, Hannah Quigley, John Kelly, Nigel & Louise, our film crew and theatre maker winners, mandla, Calico & Emergency Chorus. Do see the resulting film & more details on our Collaboration/ BOLD Maker page.

Out of BOLD Makers our Southwark BOLD Resident Artist Scheme emerged – we have enjoyed providing support to the artists Max Percy & Chris Yarnell – and seeing new shows emerge – Max Percy’s show BAKLA garnered huge praise and 5* reviews at Edinburgh.

We have enjoyed, immensely, being partners with James Ross & Quantum Leopard as they used the BOLD Undercroft for their incomparable comedy nights these last few months – catch them whilst you can!

A huge part of our work has been supporting diverse theatre freelancers and independent companies. Over the last year we have provided over £20k in ‘gift in kind’ support (this is just garnered from running our building – we receive no funding) and have felt it so important we could support theatre makers in this way.

We have made it an important factor to support access needs as much as we can – thanks to the director Hannah Quigley for being our Artist for Change and giving us invaluable guidance. We continue this journey as well as partnering with organisations like VitalXposure.

The building is currently thrumming with activity as all spaces are occupied creating new shows or musicals during the week and workshops running in the evening/weekend. We hope we can be here beyond March 2024! Come and be part of it!

Spring 2022

As I sit writing this the rain is falling but the weather forecast for tomorrow is sunny and there are definitely signs of Spring even at the Elephant & Castle. We’ve got exciting updates on BOLD Weds our ongoing training for professional theatre makers and BOLD Playwrights, our new writing scheme headlining our news.

BOLD Weds 6.30-8.30pm

We have our next 2 masterclasses for professional theatre makers workshops now available to book:

Weds 30th March 6.30-8.3opm  BOOK PAY WHAT YOU CAN

Exploring a Scene with Active Analysis with Pavlos Christodoulou

A 2 hour workshop where we will work on duologue scenes using active analysis inspired techniques. Without seeing the scene in advance, we’ll work with a mixture of improvisation and some text work to explore the scene and get it on its feet in a fun and practical way. There’s nothing to prepare, you’ll be given a scene and scene partner at the workshop.

Pavlos is an artist trainer interested in contemporary performance practices who has worked at Central School of Speech and Drama, University of East London and is currently an Associate with Boundless Theatre and Phosphoros Theatre. He trained on the MA Actor Training and Coaching at Central and has created and performed with Dirty Rascals Theatre.

Weds 6th April 6.30 – 8.30pm BOOK FREE

Proposing a Project with Caitriona Shoobridge

Pitching can be stressful and as makers we invariably spend more of our time talking about our work than we do making it. The ability to be able to clearly and concisely articulate the tone and texture of our work can be a key step in getting it to a rehearsal room but often we find ourselves having these conversations before ever really knowing what we might end up making.

In this workshop director Caitriona Shoobridge will share tools for streamlining initial thoughts for a production and ideas on how we can most effectively communicate them to others.

We will focus on:

•     Quickly accessing the major idea of your work

•     Giving a clear picture of yourself as an artist

•     Translating images – helping us to see it.

•     Context – Knowing who you’re talking to.

This is a practical workshop. Directors should come along with a project in mind that they would like to make in the future, this can be a play or a devised piece. You can bring any idea, although it must not be something that you have already fully realised. There will be opportunities to work on your idea alone and in groups and some time for discussion at the end.

More workshops to be announced soon.

BOLD Playwrights

We have been developing 3 brilliant plays with 3 playwrights since they were selected from 151 first draft 15 page submissions.  All 3 are now full length plays and have been through several dramaturgy sessions, further drafts and actor workshops to arrive at the scripts that we are reading on a series of Friday afternoons in May at BOLD Elephant at 2.30pm.

Fri 6th May Anchoress by Leila Nashef

Fri 13th May The E.U. Killed My Dad by Aaron Kilercioglu

Fri 20th May West Country Oriental Gentleman by Jaisal Marmion

The readings are for an industry audience and if that’s you and you’d like to come along, please email us:  boldplayrights@boldtheatre.com

Finally, we have had to push back our next live production, a new play by the brilliant Chris Bush performed over 3 floors of the BOLD Elephant building to the Autumn.

SEVEN SCENES FROM THE END OF EVERYTHING, is a clever, funny, irreverent and thought-provoking new play that explores how we might behave at the end of the world (yes, it’s coming). Written by award-winning playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker Chris Bush NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS (Almeida Theatre), FAUSTUS:THAT DAMNED WOMAN (Headlong /Lyric Hammersmith), STANDING AT THE SKY’S EDGE (Sheffield Theatres), PERCICLES (National Theatre). 

As ever, we hope you can join us at BOLD Elephant and we look forward to giving you a big BOLD welcome,

Sarah and the BOLD team xx

PS A reminder that the 7 short performance films we made at BOLD Elephant (each 4-7min) are still available to watch for free on the website – just click on Past Elephants and scroll to the bottom and then click on any of the film images you’d like to watch.