The Future is an artist-centered development collective, which focuses on the growth and development of early career artists in the North West. The Future actively supports, produces and provides free dedicated arts administration to existing and early-career contemporary artists/theatre companies; and is run by a collective of independent producers, administrators and project managers. The Future’s Director, Lisa Mattocks shares with us few things they really like at the moment.

Event: GIFT: Gateshead International Festival of Theatre
GIFT happens once a year over the first May Bank Holiday weekend. It is an international festival that brings together new theatre makers from around the world. It is a great festival and always has a really diverse and interesting line-up. One of our supported companies, Massive Owl, will be performing their show, ‘We Used to Wait’, at the Festival Launch on the 2nd May. Also, a company called Tenderfoot, comprised of two very talented and charming women, are performing on the 5th May.

Artist: The Future is currently supporting six contemporary theatre artists/companies – Leentje Van De Cryus, Massive Owl, Lowri Evans, Façade Theatre, Nicki Hobday & Sara Cocker and Tuheen Huda. You can find out more information about each artist on our website.

Facade Theatre will be performing Celladour  - an imaginative tale of the grotesque process of beautification at Works Ahead on Fri 3 May at 7:30pm. The show is a softly narrated, highly visual and distinctly physical performance, which is told through the actions of three trainee Geishas, undertaking their universal quest to become “The Madame Butterfly” – the ultimate beauty.

Video: One of our artists Lowri Evans has a lovely trailer for her new show ‘The Secret Life of You and Me’ which you can watch here.

I also love the music video for ‘What’s a Girl to Do’ by Bat for Lashes

Book: I have recently finished reading Miranda July’s newest book, “It Chooses You”. It’s a sort of non-fictional adventure book. Miranda July finds people in the ‘Pennysaver’ – which is a free classified adds book that is distributed around LA  (it’s a bit like ‘Loot’) – and she interviews a selection of the people she finds. The book serves as both a memoir and a collection of stories from strangers. My favourite line from the book is…. “All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life.”

Album: We have been listening to Bastille – ‘Other People’s Heartache’ in The Future office over the past two weeks. It is brilliant! – It’s available to download for free and is a film-inspired mix-tape. I would also passionately recommend Bikini Kill – anything by Bikini Kill or anything that involves Kathleen Hanna actually (Le Tigre, Julie Ruin) – a documentary is coming out about her soon.