Boundless Theatre Are Shaking Up How Young Adults Access Theatre and Lead Culture Through Major New Initiatives in 2023

Boundless Theatre has announced a big shake up of its leadership structure and programme of work alongside exciting plans for the year ahead, following the confirmation of Arts Council England NPO funding. Boundless Theatre will continue to disrupt the conventional means of engaging in the arts as a teenager and young adult and will continue to champion the cultural voice of young people in the UK. The vision for the organisation is to cultivate a new approach to sustain change within the industry for 15-25 year olds.

Having conducted research in 2019 and spending three years co-creating solutions to identified challenges young adults face accessing cultural spaces, creative activities and employment, Boundless has arrived at a wide ranging co-creation to co-leadership strategy. With more inclusive, equitable opportunities for young adults to lead at Boundless, the company hopes to inspire others to welcome young people to the table and make decisions.

To start with, Boundless Theatre will appoint four new co-leaders to job share Artistic Director/CEO and Executive Director roles over the next two years. These will be fully paid roles, which have been created to allow Boundless Theatre's to test how to further embed core principles of co-creation and co-leadership into their work. By training young people aged 18-25 in leadership, with equitable decision making authority, the aim is to foreground new thinking and place equitable youth leadership at the forefront of all aspects of the organisation. These roles will be advertised from 20th February 2023.

Boundless Theatre Artistic Director Rob Drummer, comments, Recently I attended a cultural leadership event and was called brave for introducing our co-leadership pilot at Boundless and ever since have been interrogating that word. For all of us at Boundless, these past 6 years have not left us feeling brave for including more young adults in our work. If anything, we've wanted to find ever more ambitious ways to bring voices to the table that can often be heard but less regularly truly listened to. We're on a fascinating journey at Boundless, that started with establishing our Advisory Group of 15-25-year-olds in 2016 and now includes sharing the two most senior roles in our organisation with those who may not otherwise be taken seriously as leaders. With the scaffolding to support them and the permission to get some of it wrong, I am sure that the outcomes will fundamentally change us as a company and I hope inspire others to join us in finding new ways to support our future leaders, right now.

Gen Z are busy putting effort into what matters to them - working towards a stable, happy and healthy future. They don't want to take the time to find out what they might like. They want it to come straight to them. (Boundless Theatre x YouthSight, 2019)

Complementing the co-leadership work and following 18 months of co-creation, research and development, Boundless Boxes will travel across the UK over the next three years, starting this summer in Leicester, Croydon and Lambeth. Boundless Boxes, developed with architects U-Build will be requested, constructed and directly programmed by 15-25 year olds. These flexible spaces will be piloted in 2023 with a group of trainee project managers from Lambeth. Boundless hopes to test how giving space to youth creativity and building new cultural spaces around the UK can reduce isolation, have a positive placemaking impact on local communities and introduce new pathways to creative careers.

In a major new partnership, Boundless Theatre and Guildhall School of Music & Drama are working in association with the Museum of Youth Culture, looking for the next new epic play. The Big Boundless Show Prize will see a theatre maker or writer supported with a full commission and a bespoke artistic development journey. Boundless aims to realise the resulting play in a production at Guildhall School, before showcasing it to a wider industry audience.

Vice Principal and Director of Drama at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Orla O'Loughlin comments,

We're thrilled to partner with Boundless and the Museum of Youth Culture on this ground-breaking new project. Our alumni community is packed full of extraordinary artists with distinct and powerful voices. The Big Boundless Show Prize is a unique invitation for them to share their most ambitious idea for a new epic play, and to develop that play here at Guildhall with the next generation of actors. We're looking for untold stories and bold, radical ideas that can find a home within this collaboration. We can't wait to work with them. 

Boundless Artistic Director, Rob Drummer comments,

This is such an exciting new partnership for us and we're really looking forward to working with Guildhall School and the Museum of Youth Culture to find the next new epic.  Giving artists the chance to think big and re-imagine or re-evaluate a classic specifically for new, diverse audiences is everything we're about. I can't wait to see the results of this commission.

Boundless Accelerator continues to identify, support and provide ongoing development to the best artists at the start of their career, with the 2023 theme set by the Boundless Advisory Group structured around the prompt of Money. Having supported the early development of Ryan Calais Cameron's West End transfer For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy (New Diorama/Royal Court), it is clear that nurturing these opportunities are more important than ever for the creative landscape. The new cohort of artists are: On the Common, Yasmine Dankwah, Jade Franks and Christopher Whyte.

These productions, projects and diverse experiences promote meaningful social engagement around culture. Boundless aim to cultivate dialogue with a vibrant and diverse youth culture, and believe that by investing in and being inspired by early career artists they can promote conversation with a global community of 15-25-year-olds.

With the further programme details to follow in due course, Boundless Theatre are encouraging those to get involved and keep their eyes out for more exciting announcements. In the coming weeks the team will open long-awaited world premiere of Charlie Josephine's Flies, featuring an exceptional cast of BRIT school actors and alumni at Shoreditch Town Hall.

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