Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell

Give Me the Sun is a new play by Mamet Leigh which will have its first production at Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell, with support from an Arts Council England project grant.

Short description of play: Bashir and Baba live in a council house in London. Baba, once a doctor in Egypt, works in Tesco. Bashir plays basketball with his friends and wonders what his home country was like. When he turns eighteen, his father encourages him to ask him anything, not expecting that the question will be ‘why did we come to the UK?’.

Give Me the Sun is a compelling short play, exploring what happens when too much is left unsaid for too long. A seemingly perfect father-son relationship unravels to reveal grief, loss and loneliness. As a play, it addresses the complexity of finding your place in a new country and how different that can be for each person.

Writer Mamet Leigh was a pioneer of the Tehran Underground Theatre Movement before coming to London in 2013. The script runs at 50 minutes – one hour.

Details

Total Fee: £3,093 (preparatory fee of £1,117.00, 3 weeks rehearsal @ £494/week & production week @ £494)

Timing: Performance dates will ideally be in April, May or June 2022. The exact dates will be agreed between the availability of the director, designer and theatre space. The director will need four weeks of continuous availability for rehearsals and production week.

Please note: we are ideally seeking a director of Middle Eastern or Northern African background.

Next steps: if you are interested in applying to direct this production, please contact Niamh at niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk to request a copy of the script by February 10th.

We have had to postpone our in-house show and now have space for performances between Feb 8th and mid/late March. Please get in touch with us at submissions@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk if you would like to discuss having a show at BET very soon!

More details:

We work on a 50/50 box office split basis, in our black box venue with a newly installed ventilation system. The performance area is 7.65m x 5.5m. We are licensed to seat 50 but currently aim to cap capacity to around 40 to allow for greater distance - and thus confidence and comfort in attending - between audience members. We have small subsidies available to help offset the impact of reducing capacity.

We cannot programme any shows on a Monday evening or Saturday afternoon (except during half-term).

We seek to programme emerging and independent artists creating and presenting new work. We don't programme new productions of established scripts or shows that have been on in London before, unless they have substantially developed since they were last on.

We are open to stand-up comedy, physical theatre, dance, new writing and are especially interested in work which may resonate with our local communities in Camberwell.

Ideally a submission should include details of the proposed show, who will be involved, what dates are possible and a link to past work.

Blue Elephant Theatre is looking for a Stage Manager for its Christmas production, The Search for Santa.

Blue Elephant Theatre’s in-house Christmas shows are a very special part of our year – they’re always well-attended and well-loved by local families and schools and we create them with our local communities in mind. They’re also created on a shoestring budget so need a lot of ingenuity and quick-thinking to pull off!

The Stage Manager’s Duties will be:

● Attend rehearsals to become familiar with the show
● Support finding and making props/stage dressing for the show
● Supporting the get-in
● Operating sound and lights for the tech, dress rehearsal and shows
● Setting up pre-show, clearing up post-show and liaising with actors
● Sending show reports
● Managing the get-out

(Please note that this list is not exhaustive and other duties may be added to it in consultation with the Stage Manager)

Desirable Skills & Experience:

● Experience of stage-managing and operating shows
● Experience of working in a fringe venue
● Experience of working on shows for children
● Experience of programming QLab and editing basic sound effects
● Prop-sourcing/making

Minimum Dates Needed:

Rehearsal days: Thursday 2nd & Friday 3rd December (roughly 9.30am – 6.30pm)
Get In: Monday 6th December
Tech & Dress Rehearsal: Tuesday 7th December

Shows: Wednesday 8th December – Tuesday 21st December with no performances on Monday 13th or Friday 17th. Please note the Stage Manager will be required to take either 9th or 10th December off so they do not work too many days in a row.

Show times:
Weekdays from 8th – 16th December: 10.45am & 1.30pm
Weekends: 2pm & 4.30pm
Monday 20th December: 10am, 11.30am and 2pm
Tuesday 21st December: 10am & 11.30am followed by the get-out

Fee: £1428 for above dates plus holiday pay. The fee will increase if additional dates are agreed, e.g. more rehearsal dates or a second get-out day.

This contract is offered on a freelance basis.

If you are interested in working with us on The Search for Santa, please get in touch with Niamh and Jo at recruitment@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk by end of day on November 22nd. Please send your CV and a short cover note confirming you’re available for the dates. You can also send a video application to the same address if you prefer.

If you have any questions, please contact Niamh at niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk.

The Blue Elephant Theatre welcomes applications from all sections of the community regardless of race, colour, ethnic or national origins, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, disability or religious beliefs.

Please note BET's theatre space is wheelchair accessible but our cafe upstairs and our tech box are not. Should the person appointed be a wheelchair user, we should be able to reconfigure our tech set-up so the show can be operated from the theatre space.

Blue Elephant Theatre is excited to be mounting an in house family Christmas show The Search for Santa.

The Search for Santa is about a Scientist searching for proof of Santa who meets a Penguin along the way who is also seeking out Santa for their own reasons. They team up and ultimately learn some important things about themselves and others. We are looking to create a show that is full of joy, magic, slapstick humour and playfulness.
It is aimed at ages 3+

Dates:

Rehearsals: November 25th (exploratory/workshop day from 9.30am –5.30pm)
Monday 29th November – Friday 3rd December, 9.30am – 5.30pm

Tech & Dress Rehearsal: Tuesday 7th December

Performance Days:
Wednesday 8th – Friday 10th December (shows at 10.45am and 1.30pm)
Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th December (shows at 2pm and 4pm)
Monday 13th - off
Tuesday 14th – Thursday 16th December (shows at 10.45am and 1.30pm)
Friday 17th - off
Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th December (shows at 2pm and 4pm)
Monday 20th (shows provisionally at 10am, 11.30am and 2pm)
Tuesday 21st (shows provisionally at 10am & 11.30am – Tuesday 21st may not go ahead)

Total Payment: £1902.81 including holiday pay for the full above schedule. (£1784.20 if the run is December 8th – 20th only, to be confirmed as soon as possible.)

Casting Breakdown:

Scientist – Scientifically-minded and focussed on results. We are ideally looking for a Black female actor of any age to cast for this role.

Penguin – Brings a lot of slapstick comedy to the play but can also be very earnest. Has trouble believing in themselves. We have no gender, age or ethnicity in mind for this character.

Good comic timing and movement skills are helpful for both parts and actors should be comfortable leading Christmas carols. Puppetry skills/experience may also be helpful for both parts. Ideal applicants will have considerable experience of children’s theatre and the ability to react quickly and ad-lib in response to audience interaction.

How to apply: Please apply via our audition notice on Spotlight or by emailing submissions@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk by end of day on October 28th with a CV/spotlight link and short cover note outlining your suitability for the project. You are welcome to send the cover note as a video or voice note. If emailing, please entitle the email ‘The Search for Santa Application’ and address it to Jo Sadler-Lovett and Niamh de Valera and indicate which character you are more interested in. It would be helpful if you could indicate if you have had a DBS check within the last three years and could fill out and complete the Casting Call and Monitoring Form.

We aim to hold auditions at Blue Elephant Theatre on Thursday 4th November and call-backs on Friday 5th November
.
For more information about Blue Elephant Theatre, please visit our website www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk. Please email Jimmy at jimmy@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk if you have any further questions.

Blue Elephant Theatre welcomes applications from all sections of the community regardless of race, colour, ethnic or national origins, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, disability or religious beliefs. With our children’s shows especially, however, we always aim for our casting to reflect our multi-ethnic local community. Please note that our performance space is on the ground floor, where there is also an accessible bathroom, and is accessible for wheelchair users but our upstairs bar is not.

Blue Elephant Theatre is seeking an actor to perform a short original monologue, created in response to our Black History Month 2021 project, supported by Southwark Council. Taking inspiration from the theme Harmony in Diversity, we have explored how areas in the UK that have become celebrated and well-known due to diverse Black communities settling there.

The monologue is being written by Nicole Acquah and will be 15-20 minutes long.

We are seeking a female Black actor, with a playing age of 18-30 who can also portray a child. The monologue will be quite lyrical (using repetition and rhythm) so experience with poetry/lyricism and delivering text with metre will be useful.

The total fee is £250 to cover:
- Short rehearsal at Blue Elephant Theatre (at a mutually agreed time during the week of October 25th)
- The monologue being recorded and uploaded to YouTube (initial agreement for up to one year)
- A full day at Blue Elephant Theatre on October 29th, with performances at 3pm and 7.30pm (starting around 12pm)

How to apply: Please apply via our audition notice on Mandy or by emailing submissions@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk by end of day on Monday October 18th with a CV/spotlight link and short cover note outlining your suitability for the project. We may be able to cast based on show reels without holding auditions but we will respond to all applications.

Please email Niamh at niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk if you have any further questions.

Blue Elephant Theatre is delighted to announce that 3hers Collective, Halfpace Theatre, Seeds Productions and NO TABLE will be our new resident companies as part of our Elephantology 2021 festival.

They are all early career companies that we are excited to welcome to the Blue Elephant Family; they will receive support from us and will each present a showcase of their work - so watch this space.

Find out a little bit more about our companies below:

3/hers is a female led performance collective focused on the stories and experiences of those who identify with womanhood and the feminine. The founders, Princess (she/they), India (she/her) and Ruby (she/her), formed the collective during their European Theatre Arts training at Rose Bruford College, where they discovered their shared passions for devised performance. The collective draws creative inspiration from intermingling lived-experience with classical texts and socio-political events. These elements work in tandem to transform personal experiences into a combined and universal theatrical expression, keeping the values of respect, diversity and lightheartedness at the core of their practice.

3/hers plan to develop their show The Pursuit of Happiness to explore the themes of the feminine pursuit of happiness, and what this means for women from different socio-economic, cultural and religious backgrounds.

Seeds Productions is made up of two friends Lillie Seeds and Angharad Griffiths sharing their love of music and songwriting through the expression of comedy in order to create relatable content. They are looking forward to being able to share their show with people after a long year without audiences! They also hope to create new and exciting connections within the industry.

Halfpace Theatre is a theatre company dedicated to devised theatre and new work by underrepresented artists. Halfpace debuted in 2021 with the devised piece fester at The Cockpit Theatre as part of Camden Fringe Festival. They are planning on using the residency to research and develop a new piece of devised theatre using the fairytale Bluebeard as a jumping-off point to explore violence (particularly gendered violence) in contemporary society.

NO TABLE was assembled at Theatre Peckham this year as part of the government’s Kickstart Scheme. Made up of five young theatre-makers from a variety of backgrounds, it aims to create risk-taking work that uplifts eclectic voices through a playful approach to theatre-making and to embolden young creatives in Southwark with artistic opportunities, events and workshops.

They are developing their first original creation, Eating Jeff, a dark and absurdist dive into modern activism and the current discourse around political engagement and identity. Through the residency, they hope to heighten the relevance of the piece by fleshing out the characters, playing with genre, structure, and audience expectations – involving external creatives to refine the dialogue, movement and style.

The residency programme is supported by The Idlewild Trust

Elephantology is Blue Elephant Theatre’s Festival for recent graduates/those who are just entering the performing arts industry. We created our Elephantology Festival to offer showcase opportunities as a supportive step into the arts industry. With the support of the Idlewild Trust, this year’s Elephantology offer is a little different, including workshops, mentorships and showcase opportunities. As part of Elephantology, we can offer four “graduate companies” (or equivalent) support to workshop or re-rehearse an original short play – potentially one which had to be abandoned previously – and present a showcase of the work.

The offer is:

⦁ A minimum of three days space at Blue Elephant Theatre in September 2021 (generally weekdays, 10am-6pm)
⦁ £300 bursary towards the expenses of those taking part
⦁ Artistic, marketing, press and fundraising mentoring
⦁ Some technical support and the opportunity to present a showcase in our professional theatre, either live or filmed

What you should know before applying:

⦁ We are looking to support those who have entered the performing arts industry in the last eighteen months or will be shortly; if you finished or are finishing training in 2020 or 2021 for instance.
⦁ The pieces should be original pieces and not a remounting of a script by an established writer.
⦁ All collaborators must be over 18 and based in the UK, ideally London.
⦁ For more technical information about Blue Elephant Theatre, please see here: http://blueelephanttheatre.co.uk/companies
⦁ Our stage is 7.5m x 5.5m and we only have one (small) dressing-room so we are limiting this opportunity to pieces with four cast members or less.
⦁ Please note that the Blue Elephant’s theatre space is on the ground floor and accessible to those in wheelchairs but its upstairs bar area is not.
⦁ We will work with you to make this as rewarding an experience as possible, bespoke to you.
⦁ We are committed to working safely and so may have to change arrangements if Covid restrictions change or if our planned ventilation works are further delayed.
⦁ Blue Elephant Theatre is committed to widening access to the arts and we particularly strive to work with people who reflect our local communities and audiences in Southwark and make work that is relevant to contemporary multi-cultural London. We particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented in the arts and/or face discrimination, including people who experience racism, identify as working class, identify as having a disability or are from the LGBTQ+ community.

To apply, please complete the application form here by noon on July 20th. Alternatively, you can record your answers as video or audio files and share those with us at submissions@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk. After you submit your application, we may get in touch with you to ask for more information or to clarify anything we are unsure of. If you would like an application form posted to you, rather than use the survey tool, or to access it in a different format or have any questions, please contact us on Niamh@blueelephanttheatre.co.uk or 02077010100.