Collaborating with international companies can open up valuable funding opportunities, but the real benefits are artistic, argues Lyn Gardner.
At an Edinburgh fringe industry breakfast last month I was struck by how many producers and programmers were present from Europe and North America. And it wasn't even a British Council showcase year, as that's a biennial event, with the next one scheduled for 2015.
The presence of so many visitors from overseas is perhaps a reminder of the fact that British theatre is beginning to attract attention from abroad, as the Unicorn's Purni Morell suggested earlier this year in an interview. She pointed to the way that the Oxbridge literary monopoly on British theatre had finally been broken and that we were starting to generate a critical mass of young companies – she cited Non Zero One and Made in China, but there are dozens more. They are are of interest to European programmers and producers in a way that wasn't always the case back when British theatre thought it was a world-beater and believed it was only the text that really mattered... Keep reading on The Guardian
At an Edinburgh fringe industry breakfast last month I was struck by how many producers and programmers were present from Europe and North America. And it wasn't even a British Council showcase year, as that's a biennial event, with the next one scheduled for 2015.
The presence of so many visitors from overseas is perhaps a reminder of the fact that British theatre is beginning to attract attention from abroad, as the Unicorn's Purni Morell suggested earlier this year in an interview. She pointed to the way that the Oxbridge literary monopoly on British theatre had finally been broken and that we were starting to generate a critical mass of young companies – she cited Non Zero One and Made in China, but there are dozens more. They are are of interest to European programmers and producers in a way that wasn't always the case back when British theatre thought it was a world-beater and believed it was only the text that really mattered... Keep reading on The Guardian