THEATRE UNCUT gets people thinking, talking and taking action on current social justice issues.
"Theatre Uncut isn't just a performance, it's an idea: that theatre can be immediately responsive to world events, engender discussion and effect change." - Lyn Gardner, the Guardian
The idea is simple: We ask some of the world's most exciting playwrights to respond to current political situations by writing short plays. We then make the scripts available for anyone to perform, anywhere, rights-free for a limited period.
Over the past 3 years over 3,000 people have performed the Theatre Uncut plays across 17 countries in theatres, universities, community centres, homes, on the streets, on public transport, anywhere and everywhere.
"21st century live theatre at the raw peak of its powers, doing exactly what it does best" - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
Theatre Uncut writers have included Mark Ravenhill, Lucy Kirkwood, Neil LaBute, David Greig, Tanika Gupta, Jack Thorne, Clara Brennan, Anders Lustgarten and Dennis Kelly as well as playwrights from Syria, Iceland, Greece, Spain and Egypt.
Until now Theatre Uncut has been an entirely voluntary organisation where absolutely everyone has donated their time, skill and energy. But this is no longer sustainable so we need your help.
This autumn, we have staged a week of flagship performances of the new 2013 plays at the Young Vic in London, and have also co-ordinated the mass action period wherein the plays have been performed by other groups all over the world, rights-free, throughout the whole of November. Performances this year have taken place in locations as diverse as Birmingham, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Norway, Cairo, Prague, Bristol, in a prison in Castellón, Spain, across the USA including Virginia, Indiana and Oregon, and in Pretoria, South Africa.
Theatre Uncut is a not-for-profit organisation. Our crowd-funding so far has been used to help cover the costs of this year’s flagship production; offer some payment to the actors, designers, technicians, and producers that are working so tirelessly for us; and support the efforts of our amazing participation team who have been co-ordinating the activity taking place all over the world.
To continue Theatre Uncut’s work we need to raise the remainder of the target amount. This will go towards supporting the work of our Producers and Artistic Directors in creating Theatre Uncut’s 2014 events. Until this year, our third year, Theatre Uncut has been entirely voluntary.
So if you would like to see Theatre Uncut continue to provoke vital debate, and encourage positive artistic engagement with current social justice issues through making new writing of the highest quality available for everyone, everywhere, then please donate anything you can. Every penny counts.
Sponsume is a very important part of our larger funding strategy, and allows us to formalise our relationship with those who wish to personally support us. We are very grateful to anyone who wants to support our work.
PLEASE NOTE that you can give any amount you wish - from £1 to the full amount! If you don't wish to choose one of the official donor levels, click "Back This Project" and simply enter your chosen amount instead.
MORE ABOUT THE 2013 PLAYS
This year, writers Davey Anderson, Clara Brennan, Tanika Gupta, Kieran Hurley, Neil LaBute, Tim Price and Mark Thomas all responded to the question:
Do we all get more right-wing in hard times?
AND we created a brand new devising model. Rachel Chavkin of acclaimed New York-based company the TEAM came up with a Recipe for people to use to create their own original Theatre Uncut piece.
We also commissioned a collection of short new plays looking at the issue of Scottish Independence, from three of Scotland's most exciting writers, Rob Drummond, Lewis Hetherington and AJ Taudevin.
A selection of six of the 2013 plays were performed at the Young Vic Theatre in London, 19-23 November. For more information, pictures and reviews of the flagship production, and also to see dispatches from performances elsewhere in the world, visit our Tumblr page.
All the Theatre Uncut 2013 plays were available to be performed rights-free between 1st and 30th November 2013.
For more information please visit www.theatreuncut.com
The owner of this project has not made any updates yet.
