Boundless Theatre is committed to discovering the best ideas from artists who might not be known to us and developing the extraordinary artists of the future, now. We are looking for bold, imaginative work for 15–25 year olds that aims to start a conversation with the world from diverse perspectives. We also champion work in translation and seek to commission bold and innovative new theatre that is relevant, contemporary and ambitious for young adult audiences.
Boundless Accelerator is our way of supporting artists, from developing ideas through to artist support and talent development. Accelerator is a pipeline that we hope delivers new work to challenge and spark conversations with our audiences.
Boundless have been absolutely fantastic in their support. As an emerging playwright, you have lots of great conversations with different theatres interested in producing your work but Boundless go much further than that and are actually prepared to take risks and invest in you.
Glenn Waldron
Boundless Accelerator Bursary
The Theme
Mental health and emotional wellbeing
Mind, the mental health charity, define ‘mental wellbeing’ as your mental state – how you are feeling and how well you can cope with day-to-day life. Mental wellbeing is dynamic. It can change from moment to moment, day to day, month to month or year to year.
Headlines around young people’s mental health, from the chronic underfunding of mental health services, tabloid stories about ‘snowflakes’ and the impact of social media, are in our newsfeeds every day. In this context, Boundless want to creatively explore how issues around mental health and emotional wellbeing affect the lives of teenagers and young adults today.
The Bursary
We are offering four UK artists (or groups of artists) a bursary of £2500 each to develop new ideas for work that is co-created with young adults around the theme of mental health and emotional wellbeing. The bursary is intended as a cash injection to seed new work and will be enhanced with a package of producing support from Boundless Theatre.
We imagine the final projects will be theatre-based but we’re keen to support a mixture of forms that can be clearly identified as relevant to our audiences.
We welcome applications from artists around the UK and we’re committed to facilitating your work locally, including building partnerships and relationships with young people and other organisations where you are.
The project will culminate with a sharing of the outcomes of all artists, produced by Boundless and scheduled for late 2019. This will be an event for young adult audiences, industry and programmers with a view to getting these ideas further supported through to full development in 2020.
Eligibility & How to Apply
This opportunity is open to all artists in the UK who are enthusiastic about collaborating and workshopping with teenagers and young adults: writers, designers, choreographers, musicians, filmmakers and others.
Artists should be able to demonstrate they are at an emerging stage of their career (which we are happy to be self-determined) and are aged 18-30. These age guidelines are based on a shared generational experience with our audiences.
We are seeking a group of artists who reflect the diverse audiences we work with and are are keen to support those of interesectional identities and who are less represented.
Please note applications are now closed.
Read the Boundless Accelerator FAQ
