Just got this from the fantastic David Tse (former Artistic Director of Yellow Earth Theatre) and thought I'd share it:

Opening The Door for BEA Theatre Practitioners 

Arts Council England, Equity, SOLT/TMA, CDG and the Young Vic are hosting an Open Space event to address the lack of employment opportunities for British East Asian (BEA) artists in UK theatre. 

 …

We're delighted to announce today that Lisa Maguire will be NTW's new Executive Producer, starting on April 29 just a few days after Lucy finishes.  Here's the press release:

Lisa Maguire has been named as the new Executive Producer of National Theatre Wales. She will take up the post in April 2013, when Lucy Davies leaves to become Executive Director of the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Lisa joins NTW from leading physical theatre company Frantic Assembly, where she…

Thank you so much to all the creative folk who shared their ideas and work as part of our search for NTW Artist* of the Year 2013.  The entire staff team at NTW spent an epic day exploring and enjoying all of the images, writing, boxes of light, poems, daft ideas, recipes, videos and stories that you sent us.  There are lots of ideas and people that we are going to be following up with over the coming weeks and months, but for now we have managed, with difficulty, to choose a shortlist of…

All the very best to all members of the ever-vibrant NTW community on New Year's Eve.  2012 was a fantastic year culturally, and we will all have extraordinary memories.  I'm incredibly proud of the shows that NTW produced during Year 2 of our programme - from the outrageous Village Social to the epic Coriolan/us, from the fine detail of A Provincial Life to the adrenalin rush of Little Dogs, from the political questioning of The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning to the bold experiment of…

Here's a fantastic opportunity for artists from our friends at Peergroup in the Netherlands.  It's called the 'Portable Artist in Residence' and anyone can apply.  Click here for all the details..

I've spent the last few minutes scraping mud off most of the left hand side of my body - victim of the potholes of Pristina as I made my way through wet snow (Welsh weather my hosts boast) from the National Theatre of Kosovo to Hotel Begolli.  I shouldn't only blame the Kosovan department of road upkeep (or the various armies that have attacked the streets of Pristina over the years), as a night spent sitting in Istanbul airport (where they do a damn fine breakfast at 3am GMT) probably…

Here's a brand new thing you can do with us!  If you are a creative spirit, interested in National Theatre Wales and ready to contribute to the life of the company, we're inviting you to put yourself forward for the role of NTW Artist of the Year 2013.  You get £10,000 and we get your ideas and input.  

This opportunity is targeted particularly at artists/creative folk who have a bit of experience under their belt - we want to learn from you!  We are very open about who can apply -…

One of my favourite experiences of Edinburgh 2011 was Hotel Medea - an overnight re-imagining of the Medea story with a strong Brazilian flavour.  I'd promised to go months previously when I'd met one of the directors - Jorge Lopes Ramos - at an event in Cardiff, but I have to admit, when I turned up at the Summerhall venue at midnight at the end of a long day seeing shows, the idea of being stuck in a performance for the next six hours didn't feel like a good idea at all.  At the sight of…

Just spent a really enjoyable morning with six fantastic actors and co-director Bethan Jones of the BBC pulling together excerpts from each of the shortlisted plays for the Wales Drama Award.  Then on to lunch where the excerpts were performed and the winner, finally, announced.

And it is:  Kath Chandler for her play Parallel Lines

Runners up are Ralph Boland for I Tell Big Fat Lies for You, and Paul Jenkins for Fear of Drowning

Big congrulations also to the rest of the…

After a lively discussion of political theatre (what is it?  do we need it?) at this year's Arts Council Wales conference, around 40 people created a manifesto for political theatre in Wales in a rather intense 10 minutes.  The rule was that there could only be 6 items in the manifesto.  Anyone could add their own point, but once there were six points up on the wall, adding yours meant taking someone else's down.  If yours was taken down, you couldn't put it back - but someone else could.…

This weekend sees the conclusion of National Theatre Wales' Year 2 season.  And we've got quite a weekend planned!  Our final production of the year - Branches: The Nature of Crisis, in Wepre Forest, Flintshire - is now sold out for all remaining performances…

Hi All, as some of you may have heard, Matt Ball, our lovely Creative Associate who runs WalesLab is away on Paternity Leave after the arrival of his new daughter Mabli earlier this week.  Fortunately Carys Shannon, who some of you may remember as Associate Producer for NTW during our launch year, will be stepping in to cover for Matt over the next couple of weeks.  You can reach Carys through her profile on this site or at carysshannon@nationaltheatrewales.org

The deadline for…

Our friends at Hide and Seek are running a weekend of games, talk and interactive thingummyjigs September 14-17 It sounds like a lot of fun (games like Killer Queen where "two teams of swashbucklers, each led by a powerful queen, face off in this field game for up to 20 players"!) and a conference 'Playing in Public" It's the same weekend as …

Our friends at Hide and Seek are running a weekend of games, talk and interactive thingummyjigs September 14-17 It sounds like a lot of fun (games like Killer Queen where "two teams of swashbucklers, each led by a powerful queen, face off in this field game for up to 20 players"!) and a conference 'Playing in Public" It's the same weekend as …

Our friends at Hide and Seek are running a weekend of games, talk and interactive thingummyjigs September 14-17 It sounds like a lot of fun (games like Killer Queen where "two teams of swashbucklers, each led by a powerful queen, face off in this field game for up to 20 players"!) and a conference 'Playing in Public" It's the same weekend as …

Great to spend a day yesterday at Pollinate - the WalesLab summer camp.  Loads of exciting ideas from all the artists there - and a great sense of mutual support and creative challenges.  There's video diaries and updates galore in the WalesLab group. You can see everything here.

I didn't know Nigel Charnock for long (though of course I knew of his work for many years), but in the short time that I did, his fierce, fearless creative spirit had a huge impact on me.  The news of his death on Wednesday evening, just a few weeks after a cancer diagnosis, has me, and the cast of In Water I'm Weightless on which he worked, reeling, but also grateful for the precious days we spent in a rehearsal room with him. 

Nigel first appeared in the National Theatre Wales…

It's 2.20pm Saturday and I'm logged into the livecast for The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning.  The audio from the preshow is feeding through, while the onscreen message reminds me that the performance starts at 2.30.  The audio feed creates a real tension.  'This is all rather exciting' comments a guy called Rory in the livechat box.  I am incredibly nervous - as nervous as on press night for the show on…

One of the big questions we have been exploring at National Theatre Wales – and always a hot topic of discussion on this network ­­– is how NTW can help support and inspire theatre writers.  Over the past few months we’ve been having an in-depth discussion with BBC Writersroom to see what we can do together to address these issues, and today I’m delighted to let everyone know that, in partnership with BBC Cymru Wales and Writersroom, we are launching a very significant new award for…

On Tuesday evening I sneaked out of the back of tech rehearsal for A Provincial Life and called Abdul who was in Aberystwyth.  "The choir are still singing, just popped out to answer, will call you back" he whispered into the phone. For anyone who experienced NTW's 11th show, Outdoors, you will know exactly where Abdul was. For those of you who missed this often touching, sometimes frustrating, always intriguing piece of art, well, too late - because the reason I was calling was to say…