With Incoming Festival around the corner we had the chance to talk to Jake Orr about the festival he set up with Eleanor Turney five years ago that now spreads across two cities! We are so excited for A Clown Show About Rain to be involved in the festival, which supports emerging artists by showcasing their work alongside other fresh and exciting companies. Read on for what Jake had to say about the festival... Where did the idea for Incoming Festival come from? After successfully running a theatre publication, A Younger Theatre, for a few years we were thinking about ways in which we could support emerging creatives beyond offering journalism and critical schemes. Having approached New Diorama Theatre, who share similar ethos about the support needed for emerging theatre companies, Incoming Festival was born. It was at first an experiment, can we produce a festival and will audiences come? Five years later I guess we did something right. How do you select the companies involved? By seeing a lot of shows over many years. As festival co-directors we are invited to a fair amount of work across the year which we see and keep in mind for programming. We have specific call out months for when we head to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe or other festivals, but mostly its through building a relationship with us. We always have to see the work, be it video or in person. There are exceptions of course; sometimes ideas are too exciting not to jump on. What are your hopes for the future of the festival? Well 2018 sees us bringing the festival to Manchester at HOME who are just brilliant. If it goes well (obviously a roaring success for all partners) we’ll look to where else we might be able to bring the festival in future years. Ultimately though we want the work to speak for the festival, so perhaps the question should be what are our hopes for the future of theatre companies making work? What is your favourite thing about running the festival? For me, its meeting and spending so much time with artists. As producers and programmers of a festival so much of our work is central to the artists who create the work. Conversations, dreaming, sometimes even discussing finances, I love those interactions. Secondly, there is something incredibly special about meeting our audiences each night and thinking ‘wow, we did this’. Incoming Festival runs from 25 Jun - 8 July at New Diorama Theatre in London and HOME in Manchester. You can book tickets for Silent Faces' show, A Clown Show About Rain at New Diorama here and HOME here, before we head to Edinburgh Fringe! Comments are closed.
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