Artist Residency Programme
Each year, Attenborough Arts Centre provides over 100 days of space-in-kind to artists through our Artist Residency programme.
Jeanette Bird-Bradley
About the Work
Unfinished Business is a Theatre performance that explores loss, family, academia and chronic/invisible illness through the lens of a Ghost Story.
“Unfinished Business is about looking at the barriers, or times when you don’t feel like you have a voice, and finding your way through them,” said Jeanette. “It performs the process of hunting for the ghosts that haunt you. An honest but playful exorcism which reasserts control over the personal history of a body, space and voice. Therefore, becoming an advocate for marginalized narratives and an affirmation of belonging. But it’s also super silly!”
About the Artist
Jeanette Bird-Bradley is a Nominee of new Act of the year award by Nottingham Comedy Festival. She is a regular performer with Improv groups Rhymes against Humanity & Miss Imp, and has written several short plays that have been performed at Cultural Exchanges & Curve Theatre.
Matt Miller and Peader Kirk
About the Work
Fixing is a solo theatre show that explores drag artistry, personal narrative and car mechanics to ask ‘what does it mean to fix something?’
“This show has been a chance to dig into stories I’ve wanted to explore for a long time” said Matt Miller. “And as with previous shows, I’ve been able to learn new skills to share along the way, this time in both fixing cars and makeup!”
About Matt Miller
Matt Miller is a theatre maker, director and poet based in Nottingham who makes work about place, identity and ways of belonging.
In 2014, Matt was selected as one of BBC Radio Three’s Verb New Voices and their poem River Monster, charting their history growing up in Tyneside, was broadcast on The Verb, and praised for ‘powers of urban storytelling’ (Ian McMillan)
Through this program, Matt started working with Peader Kirk and they have since made two shows together. ‘Sticking’ (2016) performed to sold out audiences in Newcastle, Manchester and Durham, and Fitting (2018-2021) toured nationally.
As a director, Matt has worked with UK theatre makers Louise White, Kieran Spiers and with Neal Pike on R&D and National Tour of Five Years.
Much of Matt’s work, both as a writer and a director is rooted in autobiographical material.
They have been an artist in residence at Alphabetti Theatre, was one of Live Theatre’s inaugural Live Lab Artists, and is a current member of Nottingham Playhouse’s Artist Development Programme Amplify.
They also regularly engage in theatre and poetry education, and have worked with The Mighty Creatives, Writing East Midlands, University of Bedfordshire and others in this capacity.
About Peader Kirk
Peader Kirk is an Artist and Director working internationally in the fields of Performance and Sound Art.
His work has recently been shown at The Southbank Centre and The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, The National Theatre of Greece in Athens, Academy of Fine Arts in Turin and The Hong Kong Repertory Theatre.
Peader makes work that engages directly with communities to ask questions about how we meet amidst difference and how we create change. The scale of the work ranges from encounters in small rooms to large-scale public works in the urban environment.
Peader trained as a director with Robert Lepage at the National Theatre, London and with Eugenio Barba at CPR, Wales. Peader works with The BBC as a part of their development programme for new writers and as a mentor for emerging artists with hÅb, Manchester and Arts Captiva Italy.
His most recent academic publication was The Performative Museum and the site constructive work of Mkultra in Performance Research Journal published by Routledge.
Show Details
‘Fixing’ continued in its development during residency at Attenborough Arts Centre from July – August 2024. It went on to show as a work-in-progress performance at Nottingham Playhouse for the ‘Amplify’ and ‘Queer Up Duck!’ Festivals in October 2024, before completing a 3-week run at Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle in November 2024.
Matt and Peader then hope to secure future touring for the work.
1623 theatre company
About the Work
The Winter’s Tale is a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic play in modern English and BSL. The piece explores social injustice in a working class world where a community of Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ people are still waiting to be levelled up.
“We are delighted to be returning to Attenborough Arts Centre, this time as a resident company, after having received fantastic support for our community work over a number of years,” said Ben Spiller, artistic director of 1623 theatre company. “This project reimagines and relocates Shakespeare’s play in our world today through new writing, BSL, audio description and captioning. We are hugely grateful to Attenborough Arts Centre for supporting the creation of the show, which started life in a workshop at Shakespeare’s Globe last year. The Winter’s Tale is funded and commissioned by our wonderful US-based partners at Play On Shakespeare.”
About the Artist
1623 is an award-winning theatre company that’s all about shaking, shaping and sharing creativity based on community experiences and Shakespeare’s plays. Recent projects include Flourish! (Timber Festival), Timon (University of Leicester), Much Ado / Hero’s Song (Century Theatre), Midsummer Magic (Glastonbury Festival), Emergency Shakespeare (National Theatre). “Uplifting, unusual and entertaining” – British Theatre Guide.
Lido Loves
Lido Loves is a theatre piece that explores the personal experiences and stories shared by outdoor swimmers across the UK, the history and importance of lidos within communities, how outdoor swimming can impact on wellbeing and forging friendships and Lindsey’s personal journey of discovering her own love of lidos and the outdoor swimming community.
“My love of outdoor swimming, interest in lidos and visiting them across the UK has led me to discover the rich variety of stories that each swimmer I’ve met has to share,” said Lindsey. “I’ve collected stories from people who have harnessed the healing powers of water and community to overcome all kinds of challenges in life such as recovering addicts and people living with a wide variety of health conditions. And swimming in these beautiful pools can bring such joy. Each lido has a rich history of its own and the closure and subsequent fundraising and re-opening of many of the UK lidos puts these important outdoor spaces at the heart of many communities”
About the Artist
Lindsey Warnes is an award-winning comedy performer who has been creating a wide variety of multi-disciplinary creative work for many years. She writes and performs engaging, humourous, theatre and performance art work, combining comedy, theatre, music, film, dance and cabaret. She has performed work nationwide and across the East Midlands. Attenborough Arts Centre is a space very close to her heart, being an inclusive and supportive venue and having taken part in numerous shows and events there such as Leicester Comedy Festival, Departure Lounge, Gallery Lates and Scratch Nights she has co-produced as part of the small arts collective of Tightrope.
Lindsey is also a creative workshop facilitator, producer and education and outreach manager at The Core at Corby Cube.
On successful receipt of DYCP funding in 2023, Lindsey has been travelling the length and breadth of the UK visiting lidos and outdoor swimming spaces, gathering stories and histories to include in a brand new piece of theatre. She hopes to share a work in progress performance of this new work at Attenborough Arts Centre in 2025.
