The Stage

Nighy and Cusack back under-30s theatre festival

Published Tuesday 16 January 2007 at 13:45 by Nuala Calvi

Actors Bill Nighy and Sinead Cusack and playwright David Hare are supporting a new theatre festival in Suffolk set up by three recent university graduates who aim to provide a platform for work by writers, actors and directors under 30.

The HighTide festival is the brainchild of actor Sam Hodges, aged 23, producer Lilli Geissendorfer, aged 24, and director Moss Barclay, aged 22, who are launching it in response to what they claim is a lack of a sustained apprenticeship system in theatre.

Eight new plays by young writers, chosen by a panel of experts headed by Royal Shakespeare Company dramaturg Paul Sirett, will be showcased at the festival, which runs from April 6-8 at the Cut in Halesworth.

Launching the initiative, Cusack, who recently appeared in Rock’n’Roll in the West End, said: “Sam came to me a few months ago to enlist my support and I gave it without hesitation because frankly we need the HighTide festival. There’s a huge, untapped pool of talent out there under the age of 30 who can’t get a look in because we are no longer a risk-taking arena.

“We live increasingly in a climate where profitability rules. The tried and trusted surefire hit motivates a great deal of what happens in theatre today. The untried, who are not heard of, are considered just not worth the risk. But risk is at the centre of art and we have to engage with it.”

She, Nighy and Hare have agreed to be patrons of the event, which still requires financial backing.

The writers chosen are Iain Weatherby - runner up on Channel 4’s The Play’s the Thing - Steven Bloomer, Megan Walsh, Sam Holcroft, Sarah Cuddon, Matt Morrison, Tom Basden and Pericles Snowdon.

Their work will be developed with the help of Sirett and Hare, with a team of young directors and actors, to be announced in February and March.

A programme of playwriting, acting, directing and producing workshops, open mic events, storytelling slams, comedy, live music and film screenings will accompany the main productions.