Access

The National Youth Theatre (NYT) is to hold free auditions in five cities and online next month February.

The auditions will take place in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, London and Manchester. Online auditions are via the National Youth Theatre Hub.

Successful applicants will be invited to take part in summer intake courses, which for the first time will also take place in cities around the country. 

Applications must be aged between 14 and 25 on the date the course starts. They will be asked to prepare a two-minute speech which could be from a published play, monologue book or film script.

The company will also offer be offering "backstage interviews" for young people interested in areas such as lighting, sound, stage management and costume.

NYT patron and alumnus Matt Smith said: "It's a great company and if you work hard, apply yourself and bring the right spirit, it's a place where you can really learn and develop, and a company that will nurture you."

A low-cost counselling service for people working in the arts sector has been launched by non-profit organisation Wellbeing in the Arts.

The service offers to connect individuals working in the sector with a range of more than 150 registered counsellors across the UK with knowledge of the challenges that come with working in the arts, with session costs starting from £15.

“There has long been a huge demand in the arts for affordable mental health support, which we can now provide,” said Adam Bambrough, Founder and Chief Executive of Wellbeing in the Arts.

“The fact that we have had over 350 people come forward to use our service within 72 hours shows just how much need there is.”

The service is also open to employers, who can sign up to help their staff and freelancers access mental health support by subsidising the costs of sessions, with contributions starting from £2.50 per person.

Employers can access additional benefits including site visits and mental health and wellbeing packs for eligible employees, as well as help with funding applications and joint marketing campaigns.

“For a small amount, an employer – be it a large organisation, small company, independent producer, or agent – can help their staff, including freelancers, to access the support they need and show that they care about the mental health and wellbeing of their team, which will inevitably lead to better outcomes for everyone,” Bambrough said.

Support offered by the organisation is 100% confidential, he added, meaning that employers will not be informed if staff and freelancers register for counselling sessions. 

Access charity Stagetext has reported a marked drop in demand for the digital subtitling of theatre productions following the return of in-person performances.

It has received 39% fewer requests for digital subtitles during 2021/2022 compared with 2020-2021.

At the same time, the number of captioned live theatre performances has not returned to pre-Covid levels. The deaf-led charity said captioned performances have dropped by 7.5% in 2021/2022 compared with 2019/20, representing 24 fewer captioned shows. 

A recent survey of museum and heritage websites paints a similarly bleak picture for those who would benefit from subtitled video content. The Heritage Access 2022 survey – launched by charity VocalEyes in partnership with Stagetext, Autism In Museums, and the Centre for Accessible Environments – found 53% of videos across more than 3,000 websites were not subtitled.

Stagetext Chief Executive Melanie Sharpe said: “Deaf people in the UK want to visit a museum and be able to watch video exhibits; they want to see the trailer for a theatre production, with subtitles, and then be able to book a captioned performance for the same show.

“There are millions of people who would pay to visit an exhibition, see a performance, or share a venue’s content, if the venue just made these things available to deaf people.”

Stagetext's report comes ahead of its annual Captioning Awareness Week 2022, which will run from 14 to 20 November.

Actor Ian McKellen has announced a second round of his funding programme designed to help theatre producers pay actors a living wage.

The scheme was set up to support theatre producers staging new plays and revivals that feature casts including recently graduated actors. 

Grants of up to £25,000 are available to cover actors’ fees in rehearsal or performance in situations where the work would not be possible without the funding. The first round of grants were awarded to six productions, which received varying amounts. 

“Starting out in the professional theatre, ambition and good intentions are rarely enough. Even the most successful production, in a small theatre, cannot hope to raise sufficient funds to cover costs,” McKellen said.

“Too many emerging producers and newly trained actors live on the breadline, discouraged as well as hungry. Hence this scheme to support work that would otherwise be done on the cheap or not done at all. Our grants provide the dignity of work for a living wage.”

The deadline to submit an application for the fund is August 31.