My peers and I have began to build a theatre company. We are called The Blue Flamingos, and the company was formed after the IPAR festival at York St John University. We began to build our company after collaborating with each other on our projects. We all performed in each other’s performances and worked collaboratively with our peers.

We believed that our diverse set of skills would create a strong company, which could create work for a wide variety of contemporary audiences. We have signed up the Graduate to Director programme at York St John University as a starting point to get the company of its feet. We have made a contract and each member has been given a role within the company. My role within the company is the Finance and Venue Assistant, and  I am also responsible for arranging travel of the company and our equipment. We are currently seeking out venues and entering our performances into festivals.

As the role of Finance and Venue Assistant, I am currently arranging a festival for our newly formed theatre company at The Pavilion, a Community Hall In Grimsby at the end June. I have been looking into grants funded by the Arts Council in order to see if  our company is eligible for funding. We will be inviting a member of the Arts Council to this festival and will also gather evaluation forms from our audience as a way of getting evidence of how our work could be helpful to the community. I have been looking into project engagement grants as I believe the work of Blue Flamingos could lead to a project which could be used as a creative engagement programme for deprived areas of the country.

Our plan is to tour our performances and get our work in the professional world. We intend to do this by entering our work into scratch nights so that we can get our company name out there. We intend to find connections and partners who would be interested in funding our work. Our work is a variety of performance styles that comes together in order to create performances that communities of all background can enjoy. Our plan is to develop, create and adapt different work as a way of making a difference to the world, and telling the stories of different walks of life. Our company creates work from adaptations, to socially engaged work and community practice.  

I intend to work full time alongside the theatre company as a Creative Engagement Coordinator to support myself but within the next three years we hope our theatre company and practice will become established and renown around different parts of the country, and become the main source of income and employment.