Whistling Crew Productions Company Launches Following Carlisle Fringe Festival

A new theatre company, Whistling Crew Productions Company, has been set up to help diversify theatre in Carlisle following the Carlisle Fringe Festival last year, In Cumbria reports.

Directors of the company, Jack Ibbotson, Katharine Simmons, and Scott Wigglesworth, are hoping to use this new venture to provide opportunities to people who feel underrepresented in the arts such as LGBT, BAME, or working class people.

"We set ourselves up in the wake of the Fringe last year," Ibbotson said. "We saw there was a lot passion and enthusiasm for the arts that wasn't necessarily getting an outlet in Carlisle."

"There are a lot of theatre companies in Carlisle that only really cast people that they know which means that there isn't as much opportunity for people," he said. "Especially when we have got a university that has got a huge wealth of student talent that graduated at the end of three years; they come out and there is nothing for them to do in Carlisle to get their opportunities."

The company has recently issued a casting call for its upcoming production of Twelfth Night, which is set to come to the stage next summer. They are also planning to set up a physical space in the city for use by filmmakers, photographers, and performers.

"The challenge has been planning all of these things and not really knowing when we can do them," Ibbotson said. "We wanted to have a good programme of projects that we can hit the ground running with as soon as things open up. It's been a unique raft of challenges that we have to deal with but we have seen them not as obstacles but as things we can use to test our resolve. We're this passionate about the arts that we want it to continue and people need it."

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