Guest Blog: Rob Drummer on the Boundless Theatre Club

The Boundless Artistic Director talks about a new social network and community for young creatives

By: May. 20, 2022
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Guest Blog: Rob Drummer on the Boundless Theatre Club

How do you start, when you're starting out? That's the question that the Boundless team have been asking for the past two years as we developed the Boundless Drama Club, which has just launched for 15-25 year old early career theatre makers.

We're hoping that our new approach to supporting creative ideas, providing funding and building a community around theatre is going to help many more people get started.

The Boundless Drama Club is a community, at first all facilitated online through a new content platform, digital events and workshops, as well as chat and masterclasses. In time we're hoping that this community will grow and support us in realising our aim of launching a network of in-person clubs. We're imagining a massive and highly connected generation of theatre makers who are all starting out, supporting each other and changing how theatre is made and what it looks like.

Guest Blog: Rob Drummer on the Boundless Theatre Club
The Boundless Theatre Club
Photo Credit: Dayo Adeneye

We also believe that it is important to create more inclusive and diverse networks, especially for those who face real barriers to accessing a creative career. We've been listening over the past couple of years to so many early career and young artists who don't know where to network, how to access opportunities or learn away from formal education. So we created the Boundless Drama Club to address that.

Over the next 12 months we're in a testing phase, trying lots of different content and working across the UK to develop and then roll out skills workshops, new funding opportunities and social events.

A large part of the Drama Club is going to be in-person experiences. We've already started by buying tickets for shows and offering them for free to members in exchange for meeting us to talk about their creative work.

Alongside that, our Creative Associate Pav Christodoulou is running weekly Theatre Jams which are just the best workout for theatre makers, kind of like a band jamming in a garage but also maybe the start of new shows or collaborations. Then there are the cultural and social events run by our Head of Community, Daljinder Johal. Over the coming months we have book clubs, events with food and meet-ups across the country for our community.

At Boundless we exist to set the stage for a generation ready to change the world. The pandemic has taught us a lot, but we have also seen a huge number of people forced to leave the industry. We wanted to create a safe space for collaboration and the exchange of ideas for people who are already on the edges of the industry and then to hold that space year round.

Too often opportunities come and go but as a member of the Drama Club you'll have access to the Boundless team through our Slack channels and can join regular town hall events to meet with fellow members.

We are also so excited to be able to work with Boundless artists in new ways. We've got podcasts with Natasha Brown, who is our current Film4 / Peggy Ramsay Foundation writer in residence. Coming later in the year we'll have workshops on theatre design, directing and composing.

Where possible, we are going to test hybrid ways of working and get out to our partners across the country to meet with people in real life. Digital spaces are amazing at helping us connect, but the core of the club is getting to be creative, including in your bedroom but also with others, dreaming up new shows.

So, as we get to know all those new members starting out with us, I hope that we can help amplify and celebrate their creativity. Already it has been a real joy talking with everyone who has signed up. As each week goes on, we're starting to see the impact that we can have on how a whole generation gets going with theatre. Over the coming months we hope that many more people starting out, will start with us.

Find out more about the Boundless Theatre Club here!



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