24:7 Theatre Festival of New Writing
One of NW England's Leading Competitions for New Theatre Writers
Aug 27, 2009
In 2002, actor David Slack returned from performing at the Edinburgh Fringe with an idea about creating something with the same buzz and energy in Manchester.
He collaborated with fellow actor Amanda Hennessy on a plan for a festival that would tap into new writing and acting talent to create theatre in non-theatre spaces, which came to fruition as the first 24:7 Theatre Festival in 2004 The Festival immediately became an annual event and in 2009 celebrated its fifth birthday.
Writing For 24:7
24:7 is a new writing festival, so for it to exist at all it must have new plays to programme. The organisers put out a call on the 24:7 web site for new scripts to be sent in between the beginning of December and the end of January.
To be eligible, plays must run for no longer than sixty minutes and be original and previously unperformed and unpublished, but they must also be complete and ready to perform as the Festival is not for works-in-progress. There is a non-returnable application fee for submitting a script, which was £30 including VAT for the 2009 festival.
From the plays submitted, the Festival's organisers select a small number that they believe to be suitable and invite the writers to be part of the programme. On acceptance, there is a further fee to pay towards the costs of the venue, equipment hire and marketing, which in 2009 was £299 including VAT. The box office takings are split between the Festival and the play's producers.
The Production Process
The writer is usually considered to be the executive producer for the whole production, giving him or her complete control over the presentation of the script. For a new writer, this is both empowering and rather daunting, but the Festival's organisers give lots of assistance to writers and put them in touch with others who can help them with various aspects of the production.
Each April or May, there is the 'Big Gathering': an informal get-together of producer-writers and people who want to be part of the Festival as actors, directors, producers or technicians. This gives writers an excellent opportunity to speak to a lot of potential collaborators and recruit them onto their production teams. Any roles left unfilled are advertised on the 24:7 web site after the Big Gathering.
Each invited production is allocated one of the venues, which each seat between 50 and 80 spectators, depending on the requirements of the play and will be guaranteed six performances during Festival week. There is a house technician in each venue supplied by the Festival, but each production must supply its own technical operators and a stage manager. Front of house and ticket sales are all handled by 24:7.
The Venues
The Festival has used a number of different places for its performances in the past including hotels, shops and offices, but the last few years have seen it gravitate towards Pure night club in The Printworks, which provides a venue for the Big Gathering and has several different spaces that can be converted into temporary theatres during the Festival itself. However it has never been the only venue; recently performances have also been held in Midland Hotel, Zavvi record shop and the offices of 2009 sponsors Co-operative Group.
Whilst it may seem exciting to perform in unconventional performance spaces, you will not find anything like the same resources and facilities you would expect in even the smallest fringe theatres. Not all venues have a raised platform stage, none has raked seating, lighting and sound facilities are very basic and there is little or no storage space for scenery or props, so producers are advised to keep their staging requirements very simple.
Publicity
Publicity for the Festival as a whole is handled by 24:7, but producers are responsible for their own production's publicity. It is now a requirement that each production creates a 90-second video trailer for the press launch and web site, plus leaflets, publicity photos, posters and so on will also need to be created and paid for out of the production budget.
Festival Week
As Festival week approaches, 24:7 calls for volunteers to help out in every department, including publicity, front-of-house, ticket sales and technical, so anyone with time to spare can be involved even if they aren't part of a production.
The week begins with a special press preview day on the Sunday, which is covered by local newspapers, television, web sites and radio and some national media and can be very useful for advance publicity if a production is reviewed favourably. Each play is given six further performance slots in the same venue during the week, each day performing at a different time.
After the Festival
Many past plays from the Festival have gone on to be seen at other theatres both locally and further afield. Some are toured by the writers and producers, and some have been picked to be revived by leading theatres.
Manchester's Library Theatre has an annual festival in January of new plays seen in the region over the previous year, which always features some plays from 24:7. Bolton's Octagon Theatre has a special event each September featuring three of the best plays from the last 24:7 Festival.
Audience numbers for 24:7 have increased year-on-year at a rapid rate, which shows that there is an audience for new, untested works from unknown writers if it is marketed in the right way. It is supported enthusiastically by the local theatre industry – a number of celebrities from stage and screen have been spotted in the audience in recent years.
For an undiscovered scriptwriter, 24:7 is something that is well-worth investigating as a way of getting work in front of an audience. For theatre fans, it gives an opportunity to see some of the best new writing and writers in the north west before anyone else.
