In July last year, as a response to the ongoing problems for theatre practitioners caused by the pandemic, the STR offered 17 grants of £200 to support the research and development of new projects, to take place as performers found ways to resume their work while the lockdowns came and went. There were over 100 applications for these and it was clear that they fulfilled a real need, so this summer the STR decided to offer Practitioner Grants once more (in addition to the Annual Research Grants that are distributed in May), and this time we were able to offer 20 grants. There were fewer applications this year, which is hopefully an encouraging sign that the theatre is beginning to recover, but the panel were again impressed by the energy, diversity and imagination of the projects submitted.

The STR is therefore delighted to announce the following twenty recipients:

Museum of Richmond – a contribution towards a free exhibition at the Museum of Richmond celebrating 50 years of the Orange Tree Theatre – a powerhouse of independent theatre and London’s only permanent theatre in the round. This wil be accompanied by a programme of family workshops and learning activities inspired by the displays.

Dramaturgs’ Network – Anti-racist Strategies in Dramaturgy – supporting a live-streamed roundtable, as part of the d’n20 anniversary & Kenneth Tynan Award celebrations on 20 November 2021.

Souradeep Roy – supporting a comparative research project looking at anti-colonial and anti-imperialist plays by playwrights such as Mulk Raj Anand and Bijan Bhattacharya staged in London and Calcutta during the Second World War.

Running at Walls – towards buying green screens for digital workshops by Running at Walls theatre and dance company, to widen the ability to explore consent in a range of scenarios and through different creative methods.

J. Eva Collins Alonso – research and development material for [RADIOPHONICS], a show based on alternative histories of radio retold from a female perspective.

Anna-Helena McLean – towards equipment for working with multimodal documentation to stage a living, participatory process. This project aims to demonstrate the important work of women in actor/voice training via multimodal autoethnography and performative events.

B.O.O.K – towards purchasing plays by black British playwrights for Building Our Own Knowledge (B.O.O.K) as part of an open access library running artists in residencies for Black artists across the West Midlands, part of the Coventry Biennial.

Hannah Ballou – towards production costs for goo:ga II . This is a live art film that investigates the iterability of autobiographical performance, feminist parenting praxis, and pregnancy trauma narrative in a comedic context.

Karen Morash – towards documentation of Another Time This Time : a collaborative performance project (text compiled by John London and Kit Danowski) which uses extractions from historical artefacts to reflect on our current time of pandemic.

Roz Symon – research and development to explore sustainable models of making theatre we can use in future lockdowns.

Badapple Theatre Company –  research and development for Elephant Rock, a new play touring to rural non-theatre spaces in Spring 2022 exploring the impact of erosion along the east coast of Yorkshire, English coastal music hall heritage, and the ancient ways Sri Lankan elephants use to cross the land.

Emma Bentley –  towards a videographer to document a five-day Research and Development Phase of Emma Bentley’s new play Peaceful Disease at NDT Broadgate.

Lucinda Coyle –  workshopping her new play Pas De Deux, which has roles to be played by anyone and everyone, inspired by a lack of diverse roles, in particular for people who identity as non-binary.

Bridget Foreman –  towards research for a new play that explores what the centuries-long circus surrounding the reputation of Richard III might tell us about the way in which fake news endures, and how the apparently ephemeral world of Elizabethan theatre has shaped our sense of history today.

Jonathan Le Billon – research and development towards a  table read of a Sherlock Holmes script for performance (for a re-opened London theatre).

Liesbeth Tip – supporting a musical event in Edinburgh to raise awareness of the effects of adverse racist experiences on mental health, and open up the conversation on how we can all support those from minority backgrounds who may be affected.

Sheldon Chadwick – to develop interactive tools for the Showmen’s Mental Health Awareness Charity to break the stigma surrounding mental health within the fairground community.

Emily Garside –  supporting her workshops, one in person one online, on LGBTQ+ playwriting, in line with her new production Don’t Send Flowers (for the White Bear Theatre, in September 2021)

Eleanor Chadwick –  supporting her research and development into ways of performing Medieval Mystery Play Mankind for a contemporary audience in Coventry, while remaining true to the roots, and impetus behind, the original script.

Bella Enahoro – for research materials and an original collaboration with a jazz pianist, towards her new piece on Ophelia, Beyond Elsinore.