Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell

Supported by Southwark Council’s Culture Together Fund, Blue Elephant Theatre’s Youth Board is programming three shows in March 2025.

These performances should be works of performing arts which platform or represent disabled artist(s) in some way. By disabled, we mean somebody who considers themselves to have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 and this may include impairments, long-term health conditions and neurodiversity.

At least one person involved in each application should live, work or study in Southwark, or have close ties to the borough, eg grew up there.

A payment of £600 will be made to each show programmed, with the expectation of one performance only. The show could be a finished, touring production or a work-in-progress showing using the fee as seed money to begin exploring a topic or anything inbetween! We will also split any box office takings equally between the Blue Elephant and the show.

Blue Elephant Theatre is a 50-seat black box theatre on the Wyndham & Comber Estate in Camberwell. The theatre space is at street level and accessible to wheelchair users and there is an accessible bathroom opposite the entrance to the space. There is a small dressing room of approximately 3.25m x 1.78m. Audiences do not enter the space until the show is ready to begin, however, so the dressing room does not necessarily need to be used. Our tech box is also very small but our technical equipment can be set up and operated from the theatre space if necessary. There is a slight lip at the edge of the stage and the floor has a dip in one corner.

There is a bar/café area upstairs where audience members usually wait before shows begin. While we are working with Southwark Council to make the building more accessible, currently the only way to go upstairs is to use the stairs.

Our Youth Board will choose the shows to be programmed and artists from shortlisted applications will be invited to meet the Youth Board members at an event on the afternoon of Friday, November 1st. Your application will still be considered, however, even if you are unable to attend on November 1st.

You will find more information and an Expression of Interest form here or the Large Print Information & Expression of Interest form is here and the Easy Read version is here. Please complete the form and email it, ideally as a word document, to submissions@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk. We are also happy to receive video or voice recorded applications. We don’t need long answers and will contact you if we need more information.

Applications close at 10am on October 23rd. We aim to be in touch about whether you’ll be invited to meet the Youth Board on November 1st as soon as possible after applications close.