Delight at international award for home-grown production
Bath’s egg theatre is celebrating after a production which began life as part of their Incubator programme to develop new works, has scooped a major award at a theatre festival in Philadelphia.
Bath based performance poet Toby Thompson first presented I Wish I Was A Mountain as a scratch performance at the egg’s annual Incubator showcase in 2017. Since then this innovative piece of theatre, based on a fairy tale by Herman Hesse, has been developed into a full-scale performance which has been highly acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, with The Guardian describing Toby as “a star in the making”.
Last month, I Wish I Was A Mountain was presented at the annual IPAY (International Association for Performing Arts for Youth) Showcase in Philadelphia, alongside productions and companies from South Korea, Canada, USA, Australia, Chile, Sweden, Ireland and Belgium, where it was awarded the prestigious Showcase Victor Award, for the show that is voted the most popular at the festival by more than 400 delegates in attendance.
This award is a huge achievement for all involved with the new work programme at the egg theatre, as well as for Toby himself. Toby was originally a member of the egg’s Young People’s Theatre, when at the age of 16, he was asked to perform one of his early poems for Kate Tempest and Cicely Berry at the RSC, and later at the Roundhouse and House of Lords. Since then, he has appeared at most major UK festivals, including Glastonbury, and regularly on the spoken word circuit, with commissions from the RSC, the Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton, and Bath-based charity 5x5x5=creativity.
Becky Vowles, creative stage manager and production manager of I Wish I Was A Mountain, came up through the ranks of Young People’s Theatre productions at the egg and is now a much sought after production manager for many Bath and Bristol-based theatre companies.
I Wish I Was A Mountain is produced in association with award-winning Bristol-based theatremakers Travelling Light and was originally commissioned by Imaginate and Brighton Dome. It is directed by Lee Lyford, a former artistic director of the TRB Young People’s Theatre and now the Artistic Director of Cardiff based Theatr Iolo, and designed by Anisha Fields whom The Guardian highlighted as one of the twelve UK Theatre Practitioners to look out for in 2020.
The egg theatre is the Theatre Royal Bath’s performance space for children and young people, programming a range of high quality touring productions aimed at children and families, and housing the Theatre Royal’s Theatre School and Bath Theatre Academy.
The Incubator, the egg’s idea development programme, has been running since 2014. The aim is to deepen the quality of art available for young audiences, and to inspire theatre makers to think about children and their place in our society differently, by giving artists space, time and support. The egg offers three selected artists the opportunity to develop a piece of theatre for a young audience over the course of a year.
For further information regarding the Incubator, future showcases, scholars past and present, where to watch or how to book the work created, contact Creative Producer Tim Bell: [email protected]