Just wanted to draw your attention to a few  artist development & festival type opportunities that have come to my attention this week:

Firstly is Theatre Forum Ireland's MAKE programme which I went on last year. It's a week long residency in the idyllic Tyrone Guthrie Centre with a group of other theatre makers and mentors to work on your own project - I did it last year and it was fantastic - allowing me to start making a solo show. You can find more details of how to apply here http://www.theatreforumireland.com/make/make-2012-applications/

The JMK Trust is now inviting applications for the JMK Young Director’s Award 2012.This annual award is presented to a young (under 30) theatre director of outstanding potential enabling them to mount a professional production at the Young Vic; previous winners include including Thea Sharrock, Natalie Abrahami, Bijan Sheibani, Orla O'Loughlin, Mark Rosenblatt and Joe Hill-Gibbins. Submissions for the JMK Award are via their website between 26th December 2011 – Friday 6th January 2012. See http://www.jmktrust.org for more details. 

The Pulse festival in Ipswich is now acepting aplications for next years festival which takes place between 25th May & 9th June. It's an excellent festival presenting a range of established and emerging artists including the likes of Inspector Sands, Analogue, Cartoon de Salvo, Slunglow, Gecko, Nabokov, Ontroerend Goed and is one of the places I presented the piece I made at MAKE last year. If you're going to be making a piece of work to tour next year it's well worth a look at.

WMC's Incubator programme have also tweeted this week to let everyone know they're accepting applications http://www.wmc.org.uk/Incubator/ & Dartington College of Arts have announced their residency programme for next year - take a look here to find out more http://www.dartington.org/arts/residencies.

Last but not least my ex-employer CPT are now accepting applications for their starting blocks programme, which ties in with their annual Sprint Festival - offering a central London platform for adventurous experiences in theatre. More details here.