THE TEN - Creative Development Project
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Care to Culture is a Theatre based production company that delivers workshops and paid training opportunities for those who have been without a primary care giver or are care experienced. Established in 2020 and carefully curated over three years, our aim is to offer practical knowledge on theatrical business and create a safe space to learn and earn.
With the help of trained artists, Care To Culture, or C2C, as we refer to ourselves, strives to provide young people 18-30 with a secure environment where they can create long-lasting careers in the artistic sector. We will offer a head start to people like us!
Care to Culture delivers workshops, financial literacy training and paid artistic training to young people with care experience or experience of being estranged aged 18-30.
We develop stories and artists, specifically working with those who are care experienced, those without a primary caregiver and those who have been left in the margins of the artistic world in trauma informed and care focused ways, looking to develop work in a way that allows sustainable access for young CE artists.
In other words, we work with artists who are stuck between emerging and established to make new work, work that talks about us by learning, experimenting and developing together.
Our ethos is to always create from a place of care.
Take a look at our website:
Currently:
We are looking to develop our play: The Ten (working title). The play looks at a family who lost their mother and are coming together to clear out the family home. However this family is slightly unconventional in that the deceased is a foster carer who has fostered over a long period of time, and their foster children and biological child are now after years apart brought back together and we the audience see them outside of their labels of "care" as well as what happens when they are brought back into that space.
Why?
Having experience of Care myself, I want to develop a show that isn't about the trauma of "why" you went into care or "ended up this way" because the reality is not always so traumatic and we are people outside of our experiences. I want to show the reality outside of traumatic stereotypes and the dynamics of an unconventional family without putting the stories of care experienced people at risk of scrutiny and pity. I hope that this show then encourages more people to fund and get involved with the work that we do!
How?
Currently I am trying to apply for funding elsewhere but am asking for community support also so here is the plan:
Rather than making this show solely about myself and off of my own knowledge and to protect care experienced people from the trauma mining and ptsd that can happen in these spaces, I intend to work with care experienced people to inform and produce the show and non-care experienced people to deliver the show to audiences. How this works is;
Between January and March I will pay £50 for care experienced people 18+, foster carers and the biological children of foster carers to be interviewees asking questions about:
- The reality of how these experiences feel for them in a family perspective
- what they're fondest memories or experiences may be
- who they are now that they have had these experiences and
- why they have chosen these paths.
- Working with the writer to embed these stories in a way that doesn't twist or hurt the interviewees and asking for them to review the play if their story is used.
- In april, we will then research and develop the script with the writer, directors and actors. Paying a Care experienced director to co-direct with a non care experienced director and actors.
- I will then produce a work in progress performance that will be shared with the people who have contributed to the play as well as possible funders and a committee of 10 care experienced critics.
- I will then take the critiques and format them in a way that protects the writer and focuses on the stories and the people who have told them and send them to the writer for him to further develop the play.
I am asking for £10,000 towards the interviews and Rnd costs to pay the actors, however whatever money we do get will first go towards interview costs.
- £300 is intended for interview costs to cover 6 people (or more should we get more funding) to do interviews at £50 per person
- £300 to go towards reviewing their stories in the script and offering feedback
- £1000 to go towards paying 10 critics £100 for critiques of the show
- £1400 will pay two directors for 1 weeks rnd and rehearsal for the work in progress sharing at £700 each
- £5,450 will pay ten actors for 1 week of the rnd and rehearsal for the work in progress sharing
- £1000 towards space costs
- £550 to pay myself to produce the rnd and work in progress sharing
These are all rates based off of standard artistic fees and are the base rates.
Currently we were awarded a small amount of funding to commission a writer who we have confirmed along with the actors. We have also used some of this money to interview six people. We want to interview at least six more people so that we can gather as many stories as possible and get a wider scope of experience.
As we intend to tell more than one story this is also a large cast and so we need the support of our community to properly develop this play and pay the people involved a proper wage. We want to develop this regardless of if we get other funding so the more we can develop the show to the best of its ability!
Thank you for reading and we hope you want to help us make incredible work!
We also take regular donations on our website and would love to connect with you on our socials @caretoculture on all sites.
Organizer
Basheba Baptiste
Organizer