Funding awards for East 15
Final-year BA Community Theatre students have won a grant of £5,586 from the University of Essex’s Annual Fund. This will help support their graduation projects at the Unicorn Theatre, London, in June 2008.
These graduation projects are to be a community event and there will be four productions, all involving members of the local area.
BA Community Theatre student Sarah-May De Souza explains: ‘We have formed four separate companies within the year and are proposing to run workshops with various Southwark community groups, introducing them to opportunities that may not have previously been accessible. The process will culminate in a collaborative performance between us and participants at the Unicorn Theatre.’
‘Our aim is to produce work of a professional standard, whilst establishing long-term relationships between East 15, the Unicorn Theatre and the various client groups. Future students on BA Community Theatre will benefit from the links secured, the Unicorn are interested in a long-term relationship and we plan to invite representatives of well-established theatre companies, who may also forge links with East 15.’
In addition, East 15’s Alison Taylor, Head of Design, has won a Creative Way award of £7,000. This will enable her to set up feeder agreements with local institutions.
One of the UK's most innovative acting schools, East 15 has been providing professional training for those wishing to work in theatre, film, TV, radio and other related fields for more than 40 years. It has a campus in Loughton, just 12 miles outside of London and, in September 2000, became part of the University of Essex. Since then a strategy has been developed to expand East 15's provision to the University's new campus in Southend-on-Sea.
Alumni of East 15 include actresses Alison Steadman and Annette Badland, Coronation Street star Jenny Platt, playwright April de Angelis, former artistic director of The Bush Theatre, Mike Bradwell, and director Stephen Daldry, who was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his feature films The Hours and Billy Elliott.
Notes to editors:
Photographs of East 15 are available on request. For more information, please contact Victoria Bartholomew, Marketing Manager at East 15, on telephone: 020 8508 5983 (extension: 32) or e-mail: vbarth@essex.ac.uk
For further information about East 15, please contact East 15 Acting School on telephone: 020 8508 5983 or e-mail: east15@essex.ac.uk
