Out Of Joint Launches Stockroom

Leading UK theatre company Out of Joint has today put out a call for theatre creators to apply to join their team for a new initiative that aims to redefine the process of creating work for the mid-scale. Addressing the company's ethos of generating theatre that is challenging, relevant and popular, the strategy is to abandon the traditional model of commissioning individual playwrights, in order to produce work written by a diverse collective of artists and creatives to be known as Stockroom.

With recruitment beginning immediately and a full team expected to be in place in early 2021, Stockroom is a radical and ambitious project that aims to tackle some of the issues of audience engagement and financial viability that have confronted midscale touring theatre in recent years. The objective is to build a diverse team of theatre-makers, drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, who will collaborate to create bold and ambitious work with an appeal to audiences up and down the country. The application process will reopen every year to offer a wide range of artists the chance to take part. The initiative is long in the planning but has been accelerated by the Covid 19 pandemic. Audiences will be involved in the process from day one and continue to have input throughout the creation process.

Headed by a head writer and working closely with the artistic director Kate Wasserberg and Executive Director Martin Derbyshire, Stockroom will encompass a wide range of skill bases within the theatre sector. Be it actor, director, stand-up comedian, designer, musician or any other discipline that makes up the performing arts, the key will be the shared desire to create collaborative work within a group setting.

The team will share their areas of expertise to respond to clear and exact briefs, creating new work in partnership with participating theatres and audience focus groups. The aim is to produce theatre that puts the audience at its centre whilst keeping true to the Out of Joint ethos of presenting work with socio-political themes and a broad appeal.

All Stockroom creatives will be on the Out of Joint payroll with no one paid less than half of the highest wage in the company. Stockroom's ambition is to create four new works a year for the stage, both on a commission and self-generating basis.

Kate Wasserberg says:

'Stockroom places the audience at the heart of the writing process through an open, shared way of working that empowers a group of artists collaborate on new scripts for the midscale. It offers freelance artists properly paid employment and a secure relationship with our company over an extensive period, whilst leaving them the time and space to work on solo projects. We are looking for people excited by this new creative process, who want to make plays for audiences up and down the country, to be part of our company and write as a group. By hiring a diverse and genuinely representative group of artists we will ensure that our work truly reflects modern Britain.'

Martin Derbyshire says:

'We don't feel the current commissioning system works for Out of Joint or the artists we work with, we want a fair, equitable and inclusive system for creating non-devised work and Stockroom will help us deliver on this ambition and share that work with the country.'

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