Theatre-Rites, a company with an excellent reputation for making visual theatre work for young audiences, has launched an open call for its Mentoring and Development Programme, an initiative to 'support and protect experimentation and risk-taking in the creation of work for children'.
The programme runs 12-24 months, and the mentored artist/company will receive artistic and managerial mentoring, advice on funding proposals and partnerships, and one week of funded research and development. At the end of the programme Theatre-Rites and the mentored artist/company will co-create a new piece of work for children (for ages up to 18), which 'will involve puppetry or a strong visual language as an integral part of the production'.
Theatre-Rites' artistic director Sue Buckmaster will also provide tailored one-to-one artistic development sessions which could cover any of the following: puppetry direction/design; creating site-specific or pop-up work; creating work for children; expanding the visual elements of your work; exploring casting processes; creating devised work; dramaturgy; supporting script writing for visual theatre.
Applications are open to artists working in all disciplines, but the scheme has been designed either for emerging artists / companies who have received recognition for the work they have created for children, or for established artists or companies who wish to create work for children.
For more information and details on how to apply see here. Deadline for applications is 31 January 2014.