Albany Theatre & Coventry City of Culture 2021 Announce GENERATE FESTIVAL

Coventry and Warwickshire community performers are being given the chance to take to the stage and showcase their talents at a new outdoor festival during UK City of Culture 2021.

Local community performance groups such as amateur theatre, youth groups, dance groups, choirs and more are invited to apply to take part in a brand-new outdoor festival for Coventry called GENERATE.

GENERATE, which is supported by the National Lottery Community Fund, will see the Coventry City of Culture Trust working in partnership with The Albany Theatre Coventry to bring this relaxed, fun and family friendly festival to a green space in the city in August 2021.

It will host a range of performance work from groups from across Coventry and Warwickshire responding to the theme of 'freedom' and celebrate the diversity of the city.

CEO and Artistic Director of The Albany Theatre, Kevin Shaw said: "We are very excited to be supporting GENERATE with the Coventry City of Culture Trust during Coventry 2021.

"The festival offers a great opportunity for groups to bring an already established performance or to create something new especially for the festival to an outdoor setting, perhaps for the first time."

"The programme will be creative and accessible to all ages, so I would urge groups to get in touch, apply and join us this summer for a wonderful opportunity."

Chenine Bhathena, Creative Director of Coventry City of Culture Trust, said: "GENERATE will be a new summer festival that will showcase the brilliant talent and creativity in the city and you could be a part of it.

"Are you a music or dance group, a choir, an amateur theatre group, or have a live performance you'd like to share? If so, this is a really great chance for all amateur groups of any age, from all cultural backgrounds to perform outdoors, in front of an audience, have some fun and be a part of the City of Culture programme. We want as many performance groups from across the Coventry and Warwickshire region to join in and help to put on a fantastic show, so please get in touch.

"We can't wait to show off the local grassroots talent that thrives in Cov."

The event is inspired by the Royal Shakespeare Company's successful community performance programme The Dell in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The outdoor festival will take place across multiple weekends in August, running from midday until dusk with dates scheduled across the summer. Performances are free to attend, suitable for family audiences and will be have appropriate safety measures so everyone can relax and enjoy themselves.

The organisers understand that Covid-19 has created many new challenges for performance groups across Coventry and that some may have not rehearsed in person since March 2020.

The festival will be a chance to celebrate these groups and in order to support them to take part, small grants of up to £1,000 per group will be provided to successful community and amateur arts groups that are selected to participate in the festival.

The team is holding two GENERATE Festival Application Surgeries in May, where people can meet the organisers and ask more questions before they apply.

These will take place on Tuesday, May 11 between 6pm and 7pm on Zoom and on Thursday, May 20 from 6pm to 7pm in person at The Albany Theatre and tickets can be booked by visiting http://coventry2021.co.uk/generate

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, May 26 at 5pm and successful groups will be notified by Monday, May 31.

To access the application form (which is also available in Punjabi, Polish, Urdu and Bulgarian) in order to be a part of the GENERATE festival, visit http://coventry2021.co.uk/generate.