Lyric Hammersmith Theatre Announces Return Of Evolution Festival In March 2023

Evolution Festival returns to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in March 2023 for its seventh year, providing a platform and career launch pad for young theatre makers producing innovative work for stage and screen. Artists from previous years have gone on to create shows at the Lyric, Royal Court Theatre, the Vaults, Bunker Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, Sheffield Theatres, and the Young Vic. They include directors Stef O'Driscoll, Alessandra Davison, Gavin Joseph, TD. Moyo, Yasmin Hafezi, Diane Page, Elin Scofield, and actor and author Nathan Bryon.

This year the festival runs from 21 - 24 March and includes:

• The headlining Bill Cashmore Award-winning new play Wasted
• Evolution: Labs, featuring 30-minute re-lensing of four classic plays - Pygmalion, The Father, The Master Builder and The Clouds
• Evolution: Scratches with four nights of scratch performances created by the Lyric's SPRINGBOARD trainees
• Evolution: Films - a collaboration between the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and the Roundhouse bringing five premiere short film screenings showcasing new takes on the classic play The Father
• Evolution: Audio, showcasing extracts from the restoration comedy The Belle's Stratagem

Rachel O'Riordan, Artistic Director at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre said:
"We are thrilled for the return of Evolution Festival, which builds on our existing brilliant partnerships with the Roundhouse and Wimbledon College of Arts. Evolution Festival brings together extraordinary young artists and creatives to reimagine classic plays, re-lensing them to take them into new exciting directions. Artists across all disciplines, from direction, design, writing to film-making and performance, will be given the opportunity develop fundamental skills while creating compelling new work for audiences in a professional and supportive environment."

Rob Lehmann, Director of Young Lyric at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, said:
"We are looking forward to showcasing the exceptional work being produced by West London's future theatre makers and creatives. Our festival headliner and Bill Cashmore award-winning play, Wasted by SPRINGBOARD trainees Chanel Fernandes and Kane Feagan is a testament to the vital role this award plays in propelling new ideas from the rehearsal room to the stage."

SPRINGBOARD 2023/2024

The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is thrilled to welcome and introduce the new 2023/24 cohort of SPRINGBOARD, the innovative two-year training programme launched in 2022 with the aim to champion, shape, nurture, and sustain the next generation of performers from currently underrepresented groups in theatre. Successful applicants will be enrolled in the free two-year programme, benefiting from a bursary that will support them while they take part in a wide range of development initiatives including performances, workshops, masterclasses, artist development and opportunities both on and off the stage.

Following auditions in December, the second cohort of 10 SPRINGBOARD trainees who join the Lyric in January 2023 on the start of their two-year course are: Rima Georges, 25, from Westminster, Stacey Ann Henry, 19, from Brent, Kabira Imona, 24, from Kensington & Chelsea, Isaiah James-Mitchell, 22, from Ealing, Bella Macdonald, 25, from Harrow, Louisa McClintock, 20, from Ealing, Kim Mac, 24, from Hammersmith & Fulham, Joshua Ogbue, 21, from Brent, Behkam Salehani, 21, from Kensington & Chelsea and Corbin Willetts, 19, from Hillingdon.

SPRINGBOARD is kindly supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Emmanuel Kaye Foundation whose support has helped to launch a three-year pilot of the programme for the first 30 trainees. SPRINGBOARD is a long-term commitment by the Lyric and will provide an inspiring, industry-leading model to improve access to careers in the theatre. SPRINGBOARD's ambition is to be a template for UK arts organisations to adapt or adopt, actively making the performing arts sector more inclusive with a workforce that better represents society.

EVOLUTION FESTIVAL 2023

WASTED

Presented by the Bill Cashmore Award and the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre
21 - 24 March 2023, 8pm| Lyric Studio

The festival will be headlined by the Bill Cashmore Award-winning play Wasted, created by Chanel Fernandes and Kane Feagan, directed by Emily Ling Williams and designed by Sonya Smullen. Chanel and Kane were selected as the 2022 Bill Cashmore Award winners, following scratch performances at last year's Evolution Festival. Wasted will be performed by trainees from the inaugural cohort of SPRINGBOARD, the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre's ground-breaking, new alternative performance pathway into employment for future theatre makers.

Best mates Amber and Bella find themselves at the center of a missing person's case after their flat mate Jacob doesn't come home after a night out. What ensues is a pulsating crime drama that lifts the lid on a justice system falling short to protect young women.

There's a problem with university culture and this gripping new play dives head first into a waste-pit of victim blaming, misogyny, and a justice system in tatters. With sharp writing and gripping performances, Wasted is a must-see production for anyone interested in the lived experiences of young women in today's world.

The Bill Cashmore Award enables emerging artists to transform a fledgling idea from the page to the professional stage, run in conjunction with the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. It was founded by Sasha Bates in 2018 in memory of her husband, actor, playwright, director and entrepreneur Bill Cashmore. Previous winners of the award include Eve Cowley and Elin Schofield for Screwdriver; and Martha Watson Allpress and Yasmin Hafesji for Kick.

Sasha Bates said: "Amongst a very strong field of scratch shows, I found myself mesmerised and intrigued by Wasted. Chanel and Kane drew me into the unsettling yet pervasive world of gender politics, everyday sexism, and power dynamics with undertones of the Me Too movement - contemporary and important issues affecting all of us today. Yet worthy it is not. It's funny, lively, spirited, and entertaining, delivered via a captivating mystery - the puzzling disappearance of their flatmate.

The Bill Cashmore Award exists to make sure exciting and relevant work like this gets the platform it warrants. Kane and Chanel are deserving winners, possessing the talent, creativity, work ethic and determination to right some wrongs, start some conversations, provoke new thoughts, and entertain us along the way. I can't wait to see the full-length version and discover where these two young women - the characters in the play, but mainly the creators themselves - are heading."

EVOLUTION: LABS

Presented by the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Wimbledon College of Art

21 - 24 March, 6pm | Rehearsal Room 1

Evolution Labs was set up in 2016 by Young Lyric and the BA Theatre Design course at Wimbledon College of Arts as a much-needed collaborative opportunity for early career directors and designers to meet and co-create work. This year Lorraine Bitmead, Ashen Gupta, Lyse Marcelle, Ellis Patrick will each direct re-lensed classic plays, respectively: a relocation of Aristophanes' Greek comedy The Clouds to the modern-day House of Commons, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion set at Cambridge University exploring intersections of race and politics, a 1970's interpretation of The Father by August Strindberg focusing on gender politics, and Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder placed in a contemporary architecture firm. These re-workings are co-created with final year BA Theatre Design students from Wimbledon College of Arts; Agnes Yeung, Shahaf Beer, Emelia Mendez and Andrew Yu.

Two shows will be staged each night of the festival before Wasted. On 21 and 23 March, the productions will be Pygmalion directed by Ashen Gupta, designed by Shahaf Beer, and The Master Builder directed by Ellis Patrick, designed by Andrew Yu. On 22 and 24 March, the productions will be The Clouds directed by Lorraine Bitmead, designed by Agnes Yeung, and The Father directed by Lyse Marcelle, designed by Emelia Mendez.

Lucy Algar, Course Leader BA Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Arts, said:
"The BA Theatre Design course at Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL has worked with the Young Lyric team to create opportunities for emerging directors and designers to collaborate since 2016. The 2023 Labs creatives are all incredibly talented theatre-makers. We can't wait to see their reworked classics. We are also keen to see Wasted, designed by 2022 BA Theatre Design graduate Sonya Smullen."

EVOLUTION: SCRATCHES

Devised by SPRINGBOARD

21- 22 March, 7pm | Lyric Film & TV Studio

Both the 2023 and 2024 cohort of trainees from the Lyric's SPRINGBOARD programme will present brand new 10-minute scratch performances created entirely by them. One of these scratch ideas will be awarded the Bill Cashmore Award and will go on to be developed into the headline play for Evolution Festival 2024.

SPRINGBOARD is a ground-breaking, free two-year training programme providing unrivalled theatre-based training and development opportunities to nurture the next generation of performers from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and groups underrepresented in theatre. To find out more, visit https://lyric.co.uk/young-lyric/springboard/.

EVOLUTION: FILMS

Presented by Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and the Roundhouse

23 - 24 March, 7.30pm | Lyric Cinema

In an exciting collaboration between the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and the Roundhouse, Evolution: Films will premiere five short films in the Lyric Cinema.

Showcasing extracts from The Father by August Stringberg, adapted by Luke Barnes, the project brings together the Lyric's SPRINGBOARD trainees and young people from the Roundhouse's Behind The Lens programme who will create modern day workings of this classic drama. Direction by Naomi Waring and Cinematography support from Bani Mendy.

EVOLUTION: AUDIO

Presented by Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and the Roundhouse

21 - 24 March

Showcasing extracts from the restoration comedy The Belle's Stratagem by Hannah Cowley, adapted by Luke Barnes, and directed by Tash Hyman, performers from the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre's SPRINGBOARD programme will record a series of short audio duologues.

The audio duologues will be presented as a sound installation at the Lyric throughout the festival and online.

Tickets for Wasted, Evolution: Labs and Evolution: Films are available from £5. Tickets for Evolution: Scratches are free but must be booked in advance. Evolution: Audio Dramas are free to listen to throughout the festival. All tickets are available via www.lyric.co.uk.

THE BACCHAE

A Lyric Hammersmith Theatre production

Written by Katherine Soper, after Euripides

Directed by Kwame Owusu

Thursday 20 - Saturday 22 July 2023

Following the success of the inaugural SPRINGBOARD production of Lysistrata in the Studio in 2022, the next cohort of trainees will return to the Studio stage in this new production in July 2023. The Bacchae also marks director Kwame Owusu's return to the Lyric after his successful year as Resident Assistant Director in 2021/2022. Further details to be announced in due course.

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