SPARK Artist Call-out

    SPARK Artist Call-out

    SPARK is an annual festival of exciting new performance & art at Tobacco Factory Theatres presented by early career artists. Join us in February 2023 for a night of Love beyond valentines, produced by BLUEPRINT.

    Back for the first time since 2019, SPARK will be an antidote to Valentine’s Day – an exploration of unconventional love in all its forms. We want to hear and see any art that explores love outside of the forced binary of Saint Valentine – whether that be platonic love, collective care, queer love, love for your dog, love for your sister, love for yourself, love for your favourite flavour crisp! If you love it, we want you to share it!

    “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of an audience, asking them to love her meal deal choice” – Notting Hill (mostly)


    What we are looking for:

    SPARK will feature up to 15 scratch pieces from early career artists in Bristol. We would love to see theatre, music, art, dance, spoken word, poetry or something else entirely – surprise us!

    We will be offering slots in both the Factory and Spielman Theatres, as well as the bar and other site-specific areas depending on where your piece fits best. Past SPARK festivals have presented work everywhere from the dressing rooms to the bathrooms – if you think your work can find love in an unusual space, tell us all about that.

    All we ask is that your work takes the form of performance in some form, and engages with a type of love that would normally go uncelebrated. This might be your first time presenting this work (or any work!) at a venue like Tobacco Factory Theatres, and to us, that’s perfect.

    This is a unique opportunity for an early career artist to share a scratch/work-in-progress piece, join a community of other early career artists in Bristol and receive feedback from a loving audience. 


    What do you get?

    SPARK is a place for TFT’s early career artist and producer communities to take their next steps forward at an established theatre. We want to make sure you come away feeling ready to take your work forward to more advanced opportunities, such as our very own PROTOTYPE. To make sure you feel the love we want to give artists:

    • Mentoring with an industry professional 
    • Build your network with speed-dating – meet other artists and producers making work in Bristol and SPARK some new collaborations
    • A community of both fellow early career artists and BLUEPRINT’s emerging producers
    • Tickets for all performers to see The Wall – an exciting new production opening at Tobacco Factory Theatres in February 2022
    • A feature on TFT social media in the run up to the event
    • Full tech support in staging your scratch piece and presenting it to our audiences
    • Professional photos of your performance
    • Footage of an extract of your work 
    • Audience feedback collected by TFT
    • Event attended by industry professionals

    SPARK aims to give artists a platform to share work. Although this is an unpaid opportunity, we want to ensure there are no associated costs for the artists to perform. Travel within Bristol to TFT for SPARK will be reimbursed and a meal will be provided on the day. There will be an artist greenroom stocked with snacks. If there are any other financial barriers you might face that would prevent you from performing, please get in touch with artists@tobaccofactorytheatres.com


    How to apply

    Fill in our online application form here. If this isn’t suitable, please download the questions as a word document here and email to artists@tobaccofactorytheatres.com

    As part of your application, please download and complete the Equal Opportunities form from the yellow box on this page and email to artists@tobaccofactorytheatres.com

    As well as finding out more about you and the work you’d like to share with our loving SPARK audience, we would love to get a sense of your work – past or present. You will be asked to supply:

    • Evidence of previous work
    • A short extract of text (if idea is a play/poetry)
    • A video of your work, this could be a self tape (max 3 minutes)
    • Photos of your work (max 5 photos)
    • Closing date for applications is 10am on Monday 14 November

    To apply for this opportunity you must be 18+, living in Bristol and have something you’re ready to share with people about the theme of unconventional love.

    Whether you’ve shown your work before or not, we would love to hear about it. If you feel like your idea has been unlucky in love, please share it with us. If you, like us, may have been rejected before, see if you can find love with us.


    SPARK Q+A SESSION

    Unsure of whether to apply to SPARK? We’re doing a drop in Q&A session on Wed 9 Nov from 5 – 5:45pm to answer all of your burning questions about the festival. Feel free to jump on Zoom to learn more about the fest or just to say hi!

    Topic: SPARK Call Out Q&A

    Time: Nov 9, 2022 05:00 PM London

    Join Zoom Meeting

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87516684468

    Meeting ID: 875 1668 4468


    Performance Dates

    SPARK will be on 18 February 2023. Some availability will be needed during this week for tech rehearsal. If you are successful you may also be invited to meet with the producers to talk about your work in more detail.

    We can’t wait to hear from you!

    Love, 

    BLUEPRINT


    BLUEPRINT are a cohort of emerging producers who are committed to creating opportunities to showcase up-and-coming Bristol artists in a kind and accessible way. BLUEPRINT is designed to give a route into producing for those who wouldn’t normally get the chance, and we want to do the same for the artists at SPARK. 

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