September 2017

Overview

Waterside Pop Out Theatre is a brand new venture for Lincoln Performing Arts Centre (LPAC). This coincided with the annual Pop Out Festival at LPAC, with Paines Plough’s Roundabout being the flagship event.

This was an exciting partnership; a three week residency in a vacant shop unit, right in the city centre. The creative team transformed the space into a vibrant, busy welcome area and fully rigged studio theatre towards the back of the unit.

The partnership came from a mutual ambition to gain visibility and footfall for both LPAC and Waterside Shopping Centre.

I was Associate Producer for the project. This included programming the space with theatre shows, workshops, scratch events and meet-ups; running the space throughout the residency; producing a community play that was rehearsed in Waterside and performed in Paines Plough’s Roundabout at the end of the festival; first point of contact for artists, the team and audiences.

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This was a big project that took a hugely dedicated team to pull off! I am over the moon with the response; the majority of visitors to the space were curious passers by, and that was exactly the hope for LPAC; to reach people they don’t normally reach.

Pictured left is during a workshop for Everything We Are. Directed by Rachel Baynton, this project was designed to bring local people together who may have not performed or been part of theatre before. Rachel took a group of 12 strangers to a theatre ensemble in just 6 sessions, finishing with a performance in Paines Plough’s Roundabout Theatre on the last day of the festival. As a result of this project, two members have now started their own theatre company and one has become a poet full time! This was a hugely valuable part of the residency that I was proud to produce.