Arena Collaborative Theatremakers to Re-launch for Spring 2022 at Arena Theatre

Arena Theatre, University of Wolverhampton, has announced that its popular and successful artist development programme Arena Collaborative Theatremakers (ACT) is re-branding and re-launching for its Spring 2022 season.

Established in 2014, Arena Collaborative Theatremakers provides a platform for artists to share and receive feedback on their work, alongside the opportunity to network with creatives both locally and from across the sector. ACT follows a basic scratch night format, where artists can submit work anywhere from 5-40 minutes long at any stage of the creative process with actors sourced to perform the pieces submitted.

Over the past eight years, the Arena Theatre has successfully held 76 development nights, supporting over 1,000 artists from across Midlands and beyond. Members of the

Collaborative have had work featured at the Curve in Leicester, Coventry's Belgrade Theatre and the Birmingham REP.

The Arena Theatre's development programme has added further strings to its bow since, with their Poets and Story Tellers Assemble (PASTA) evenings providing a platform for local spoken word artists, and the newly launched How've Yow Been Dragged Up? nights providing a safe space for drag artists to test their work.

Neil Reading, Artistic Director, said: "Arena Collaborative Theatremakers has been at the heart of the Arena's commitment to new theatre artists for the last 8 years and we're looking forward to the future by refreshing the format and hoping to find the next generation of theatremakers from the region, giving them their first steps on their adventure."