The National Council for Drama Training (NCDT) has partnered with Sky Arts to recruit five emerging directors to work on the channel’s next season of live television plays. Each director will be given just over three weeks paid work (at the minimum rates set down by the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television trainee roles) with Sky Arts, which is producing a live play season for the second time following an inaugural run last year.
The NCDT, which will manage the selection process, hopes to offer theatre directors an insight into television production. The scheme is supported by the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre of Scotland and Birkbeck College, all of whom will recruit trainees through their own networks. NCDT will recruit the fifth trainee through the Young Vic’s Genesis Directors Network.
The five people selected will be employed as assistant directors working on a play each over two and a half weeks of rehearsal, followed by four public performances at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. The plays – specially commissioned new works from Frank McGuiness, Mark Ravenhill, Eve Ensler, Alia Bano and Rebecca Lenkiewicz – will then be performed, filmed and broadcast live every Wednesday on the channel from 9 June.