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MARKETING COORDINATOR: NOTTINGHAM PUPPET FESTIVAL 2018
Following a successful Grants for the Arts award from Arts Council England the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, in partnership with City Arts Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University, will be producing Nottingham’s inaugural Puppet Festival from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th March 2018.
We are now seeking an experienced and passionate freelance Marketing Coordinator to plan, organise and manage all marketing activity for this large-scale festival across the city, in conjunction with the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham and partners.
Job Title: Nottingham Puppet Festival Marketing Coordinator
Contract details: Freelance - 1 November 2017 to 30 March 2018
Fee: £6,000 (inc. expenses) 3 payments of £2,000 via invoice (1 December 2017, 1 February 2018 and 30 March 2018)
Hours: Flexible, depending on festival needs and following discussion with steering committee.
Base: Home, but regular travel to and across Nottingham required for festival planning
Reporting to:David LongfordCreative Learning Manager, Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall [email protected] Tel. 0115 9895531
To apply:Please send your CV and a cover letter (no more than 1 A4 page please) outlining your experience and why you would be suitable for this role to David Longford [email protected] by 5pm on Friday 22 September 2017.Shortlisted candidates will be invited to interview at City Arts Nottingham on Wednesday 4 October.
Key Responsibilities
Full liaison with Festival Steering Committee (TRCH, City Arts & NTU) and venue partners, artists and other agencies throughout length of contract.
Review and update the festival marketing plan, ensuring a defined structure and timeline to work to.
Project manage the set up and launch of the festival website. To assist in management and promotion of festival launch at TRCH in
January 2018. Manage and organise production of print material, including the festival
brochure and posters. Manage festival advertising campaign, utilising bus, tram and poster-
boards across city. Manage the festival’s online and social media campaign, maximising the
use of third party support channels. Deliver regional and national press and PR campaign. Copywriting for website, brochure, social media and press releases. Where necessary to liaise with TRCH, City Arts and NTU marketing and PR
departments, as well as those of our festival venues and companies, e.g. National Theatre, Broadway Arts Cinema and Lakeside Arts Centre.
Oversee print distribution, maximising the potential for visibility and readership.
Review and implement methods and processes for collating feedback and audience data for Arts Council England.
Report on progress at regular steering group meetings, feeding into the overall festival planning process.
Produce reports, images and statistics for funders, partners and sponsors as required.
Attend post festival debrief session, providing constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.
Key Requirements
Experience of working with arts based organisations. Experience of developing and delivering successful marketing plans and
campaigns that increase awareness and engagement across both online and offline channels.
Experience managing press relationships. Experience of enhancing impact through social media advertising. Experience of managing relationships with artists, partners and sponsors
for marketing purposes. Dynamic, lateral and creative thinker. Excellent communication and networking skills. To be innovative and fun in order to give this festival a unique look. Excellent written communication skills, being able to adopt copywriting
style to suit the intended platform and audience.
If you wish to discuss this post prior to applying then please contact:David Longford, TRCH Creative Learning [email protected] Tel. 0115 9895531
Alison Denholm, City Arts Creative Development [email protected] Tel. 0115 9505251Nottingham Puppet Festival Details
A four day puppetry festival running from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th March 2018, encompassing performances in spaces across the city, film screenings, community residency projects with professional puppeteers, talks, workshops, street theatre and more. The festival will climax with a puppet parade through the city.
This is a partnership between Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, City Arts and Nottingham Trent University and is the inaugural puppet festival for Nottingham.
Our aim is for the festival to be immediately accessible and identifiable to all, utilising significant and important puppeteers and puppet companies from the UK and abroad for both shows and community outreach work. The festival will seek to celebrate and raise the profile of puppetry as an important art form and will look to become a biennial event for Nottingham.
Please see Appendix One: Festival Summary for a more analysis and background to the Nottingham Puppet Festival
Please see Appendix Two: Management and Delivery Plan for draft vision of festival and biogs of festival steering group
Nottingham Puppet Festival Key Highlights
Performances of the National Theatre’s War Horse, with puppets from the internationally renowned Handspring Puppet Company.
War Horse talks and workshops, including a ‘Breakfast with Joey’ event. Puppet performances across the city at Lakeside, Nottingham Playhouse,
TRCH Studio and other venues from companies such as Little Angel, Norwich Puppet Theatre and Shake Shake Theatre.
City Arts and Architects of Air domes to be located in Market Square to create a pop-up village and host previews of performances, workshops, as well as being a central information point.
Broadway cinema to screen puppet related films, Nigel Plaskitt TV retrospective and film and puppetry workshop programme
Workshops and events with National Videogame Archive to explore puppetry in the digital sphere
Free street theatre across the city. Late night puppet cabaret programme at TRCH Led by City Arts and commencing January 2018, a major three month
community residency project leading up to the festival, in which a professional puppeteer/company works with a local school/community organisation to design and create large–scale puppets. This will supported by Theatre Design students from Nottingham Trent University.
Festival finale – a puppet parade across the city using various routes from Market Square to TRCH. All puppets welcomed with our own community large-scale puppets as centre-piece
Nottingham Puppet FestivalAppendix One: Festival Summary
ARTISTIC ACTIVITY
In 2018 the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham is hosting the National Theatre tour of War Horse
http://www.warhorseonstage.com/
This will be a springboard for a Festival of Puppetry for Nottingham, running from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th March 2018. Developed in partnership with City Arts, Nottingham’s dedicated participatory arts organisation and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) School of Theatre Design, who run puppetry modules, we will produce a vibrant, fun and accessible city wide festival.
For more information about partner organisations please click on links below
www.trch.co.ukwww.city-arts.org.ukwww.ntu.ac.uk/study-and-courses/courses/find-your-course/art-design/ug/2017-18/theatre-design
Alongside War Horse, this festival will present some of the best puppetry available nationally and internationally, commission new work, develop engagement and learning programmes, create opportunities for disabled artists and participants, support talent development and advocate for puppetry as an art form. Our long-term aim is for this to become a biennial festival for Nottingham.TRCH will produce a programme of puppet theatre and workshops, including War Horse related events, but also national and international shows, commissioning new work and support talent development. NTU will build the festival into courses, enabling student professional development. They will lead on research questions around puppetry as an art form and sector development, through links with the Puppetry Development Consortium. City Arts will develop engagement programmes including commissioning large-scale puppets co-designed between school and community groups, artists based in the region, and national partners including Festive Road and Mandinga Arts.Nottingham has been awarded UNESCO City of Literature status, and we will work with their CEO to explore puppetry and storytelling.The wider festival will include puppetry film screenings and TV retrospectives at Broadway Arts Cinema; free and pop-up events in Nottingham’s Market Square;
digital puppetry events with the National Videogame Arcade, Nottingham’s international hub for the gaming industry; keynote talks and seminars via NTU; and numerous public workshop activities.We will work with leading disability arts organisation Graeae. Drawing on their successful 2012 show, The Iron Man, Graeae will develop a workshop programme that will lead to the Iron Man puppet walking across Nottingham. They will also advise the festival around accessibility and audience development. On the final day the festival will culminate with a huge parade of puppets through the city centre. The parade will create a simple narrative, with creatures designed and made through our community programme, as well as other puppets involved in the festival, gathering in anticipation at Market Square to then go and meet Joey, the central character of War Horse, at TRCH.
FESTIVAL IMPACT
This project will have a wide impact at a number of levels: the development of puppetry as an art form; the creation of new partnerships locally and nationally; engaging new audiences for puppetry, and laying the groundwork for a biennial festival. We will explore puppetry creation and performance, programme innovative puppet theatre, bring in established companies, commission work from emerging artists and explore scale, from large street puppets, through to smaller, more intimate shows.Partnerships will be the key to the festival’s success. Venues across Nottingham will collaborate to create the infrastructure. Nationally, companies will come together, forging new links with the potential for future collaborations. Closer ties will be made with national puppetry networks and festivals such as Equity Puppetry Network, Puppetry Development Consortium and Skipton Puppet Festival.The engagement programme at the heart of the festival will target communities who may not currently be taking up the arts offer of the city, such as young people in St Ann's and Sneinton and schools in Bulwell. As puppetry, in its many forms, is accessible and identifiable to many, it will offer entry points to the cultural life of the community that enable everyone to enjoy the opportunities on offer.Finally, our aim is for this festival to become biennial. We have had very positive responses to its development, and feel it is something Nottingham can embrace in the longer term, bringing exciting and innovative puppetry events to the city, and putting a landmark event into the calendar.
Nottingham Puppet FestivalAppendix Two: Management and Delivery Plan
This document outlines a draft programme; a visual map of the festival showing where we see it impacting across Nottingham City; an overview of the core skills of the steering group and how these will underpin the management and delivery of the festival.
Draft Festival Programme:
The programme delivery will be led by:
David Longford, Creative Learning Manager at Theatre Royal and Concert Hall
Alison Denholm, Creative Development Manager, City Arts Sean Myatt, Senior Lecturer, School of Theatre Design, Nottingham Trent
University
In addition to this core team, the steering group has invited artist and mask maker Stephen Jon to feed into the process ensuring an artist voice within the development of the festival from the start.
PUPPET FESTIVAL STEERING GROUP BIOGS:
DAVID LONGFORD has worked in theatre and drama based arts as an actor, workshop leader, producer, director and programmer for nearly 22 years. As the puppet festival lead for the Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall he brings a depth and extensive industry knowledge to the project, particularly in relation to working with artists and companies, project management, programming and community engagement.
David has worked as Creative Learning Manager at the Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham since 2001. Initially funded and appointed by the Arts Council, this was a brand new role for the large-scale touring venue, establishing learning links with both the visiting companies and engaging with schools and community groups. Now well established, the department engages with approximately 3,500 learning participants a year. Highlights include:
Partnership work with touring companies such as RSC, Matthew Bourne, Opera North, National Theatre, Birmingham Stage Company, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Dance Consortium, Northern Ballet and Breakin’ Convention. Varied projects range from post-show discussions to page to stage workshops to artist residencies.
Development of Royal Company – a community theatre initiative, enabling local people to work alongside professional practitioners to create large-scale work at the Theatre Royal and elsewhere. Produced and directed by David Longford, work includes Oliver Twist, The Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Mysteries at Nottingham Castle.
The Third Stage – small scale professional music and spoken word programme at the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall, that has developed the venue and new audiences for more intimate work. With an average 85% audience attendance, shows are programmed through close liaison with artists and festivals such as Edinburgh and Buxton fringes
Theatre Royal Heritage Projects – Heritage Lottery funding was recently secured for a two year project commencing February 2017 of volunteer based oral history work and archive training. This is following on from the venue’s 150th anniversary in 2015 and its varied professional and community projects. Working in partnership with the University of Nottingham, this funding will see the creation of a new digital archive for the venue.
Touring Consortium Theatre Company – David Longford is on the Board of Directors for the Touring Consortium, a large-scale touring company that seeks to produce quality touring drama, with particular focus on young people. David provides a strong learning focus to this nationally based company, as well as implementing major community projects.
Other work includes: Education Officer at Mansfield Palace Theatre, 1998 to 2001 Artistic Director, Lichfield Mysteries, 2004 Performance Reviewer, National Council for Drama Training, 2008 to 2010 Freelance Director – Productions include The Canterbury Tales
(Nottingham Castle, 2005), The Triumph of Reason and Southwell Peculiar (Hanby & Barrett, 2005 & 2010), Cowboy Baby (Catfoot Theatre, 2012)
Professional Mentor for UK Theatre, 2014 to present Board Director for Pintsize Theatre-in-Education Company, 2011 to present
For the Nottingham Puppet Festival David will lead the project for TRCH, liaising with box office, marketing, press, front of house and finance departments; chair festival meetings; co-ordinate War Horse events with National Theatre; oversee programming, in conjunction with partner venues and to work closely with steering group and partners to facilitate successful delivery of festival.
SEAN MYATT is a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, School of Theatre Design, and is a puppetry specialist. He has over 30 years experience as a puppeteer and performer, working nationally and internationally, leading puppetry teams within the Opening Ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics and acting as a consultant for high profile shows and events, including Kate Bush’s 2014 show Before the Dawn.
Sean has been a practicing puppeteer for as long as he can remember. His work encompasses traditional and contemporary puppetry with a research interest in performing objects. Sean is currently a Senior Lecturer in theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, where he graduated in 1987.
His role at Nottingham Trent University has brought the department a particular specialism. As well as exploring puppetry, he uses these methodologies to apply to other teaching and learning outcomes, including an understanding around design, use of materials and more theoretical research into the definitions of puppetry and object based theatre. He freelances as consultant and puppeteer, and has presented at the Wellcome Trust, the Suspense Festival London, and international puppet festivals.
He was part of the team curating World Stage Design at the Prague Quadrennial, which brought together theatre design students together from around the world, and was responsible for delivering workshops curated around theatre and puppetry. This was then followed up with a World Stage Design Programme in Cardiff, which was focused on developing and reflecting on the needs of the industries.
He was awarded the Arts Council and John Wright Bursary in 1989 and used it to further his development as a puppeteer, studying and working as a puppeteer with great masters such as Barry Smith of The Punch and Judy College of Professors, Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theatre in the USA, and Company Philippe Genty in France, all via the traditional method of master and pupil.
He worked on the Opening Ceremony as a Puppet Captain for the 2012 Olympics. As well as looking after his team, this involved working as part of a collective to test out the puppets to ensure that they could produce what was wanted from the director, Danny Boyle. They explored the best way the puppets would communicate to the public in the space, with the technical and visual challenges that presented. The puppets were large scale characters bursting out of the beds, and included the Queen of Hearts, Captain Cook and Cruella de Vil. The ceremony was seen by 24.2 million people in the UK, with 42% of the British public watching.
More recently he worked as consultant and performer on Kate Bush’s 2014 show Before the Dawn. He assisted the creative team in the development of the design for the performance, drawing on his particular specialisms around animating silk, and supporting the development of the visual language for the show. He then worked as a puppeteer and performer for the duration of the show, which had a run of 21 performances.
He is a member of the advocacy group, the Puppetry Development Consortium, a group of puppetry sector leaders who work to advocate for the development of the art form. He has published numerous articles including: Theatre Materials: What is Theatre Made Of? and Object Theatre: A Developing Network (Puppet Notebook, Issue 22).
Within the Nottingham Puppet Festival, Sean will lead on research focused elements, supported by his department at Nottingham Trent University. He will explore questions around puppetry as an art form, and new writing for puppetry, as well as bring his extensive knowledge of the art form and his contacts throughout the sector. He will also support the festival more broadly through his role within the Steering Group.
ALISON DENHOLM from City Arts has been with the organisation for twelve years. City Arts is Nottingham’s only dedicated participatory arts organisation, and has engagement and community development at the heart of all its work.
Alison has developed particular specialisms around outdoor arts and carnival, exploring how large scale, visible and non-venue based programmes can support community development and encourage creativity, through working with participants and artists on an equal footing.
She regularly produces large scale, participatory events, of which the following examples are particularly relevant to the development of the Nottingham Puppet Festival.
Troupes for Carnival, including touring to Luton and Liverpool as well as Nottingham.
Alison produces large-scale carnival troupes, often with a lead in programme that engages around a hundred people each year, both in the design and making, and the performance. For the last two years, this has won ‘Best Troupe’ at Nottingham Carnival. She has also developed methods of co-design, in particular creating large-scale carnival puppets in partnership with older adults in care home settings. The troupe is very inclusive, with the youngest member being 7, and the oldest 96.
The ceremonies programme for the World Cerebral Palsy Games.
The World Cerebral Palsy Games took place in Nottingham in August 2015, and Alison produced the opening, closing and medal ceremonies programme for the event. She worked with disability specialists from the mixed ability circus programme, Extraordinary Bodies, as well as commissioning work from Kinetika to work with local schools to create large scale silk panels that were used as part of the choreography. She worked in partnership with Dance4 to create a mixed ability dance troupe who were at the centre of the show, with the overall event being directed in partnership with artist Jamie Beddard.
Community Engagement and Volunteer Manager, World Event Young Artist
Alison was seconded to this flagship Cultural Olympiad Festival from 2011, with delivery in September 2012. It was the largest Cultural Olympiad event in the East Midlands, bringing 1000 artists to Nottingham from 100 countries for ten days of events, showcases and exhibitions. She delivered an extensive community engagement programme, linking with schools, community groups and the general public, and developed a team of over 100 volunteers to support the event. She also led on the outdoor Market Square programme, with pop-up spaces hosting artists, workshops and events for the public to engage with.
Other Work Includes:
Arts Council AQA Assessor for Combined Arts (ongoing) Project Manager – Nottingham South Asian Arts Festival (2005) Project Manager – ArtReach Night of Festivals, 3 x Nottingham events and
national tour 2010 - 2014 Artist – Transform Carnival, India (2016)
Within the programme for the Nottingham Puppet Festival, Alison and City Arts will lead on the development of the new commissions for the puppet parade, the creation and curation of the pop up event in Nottingham’s Old Market Square and the liaison with Graeae and the workshop programme they are delivering. She will also support the wider programme through her role within the steering group.
STEPHEN JON is acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading theatre mask-makers. He has focused on the world of Mask for over twenty years, as a maker,
performer and workshop facilitator. He has worked across the UK and internationally, exploring the relationship between mask and community engagement, therapeutic applications and street performance.
He most recently completed a G4A funded programme exploring his mask practice, creating new work and developing an accompanying exhibition. He has worked nationally and internationally, training in Italy with Commedia Dell’Arte masters to develop and refine his mask skills, and more recently exploring leather mask work.
He has created masks and walkabout puppets for numerous events and happenings, including bigger collaborative projects such as 2013’s ‘Paa Joe and the Lion’, a set of masks and performances for a reinterpretation of Ghanaian Funeral rites, concluding the residency of Ghanaian fantasy coffin maker Paa Joe. In 2011 Stephen led ‘Mask and Puppet Exchange’ between Nottingham and Kurdistan, working with Kurdish artists exploring mask and performance. He has an ongoing relationship with carnival and street performance, creating masked interventions for Kendal Mint Fest, the Nottingham Carnival and Light Night Festival.
