The Stage

Young Vic partners up with Fevered Sleep and B3 Media

Published Friday 6 June 2008 at 13:40 by Lalayn Baluch

Collaborative performance group Fevered Sleep and digital arts organisation B3 Media have been announced as the Young Vic’s new associate companies.

The partnership scheme aims to support groups in their development and give them the chance to experience life in a producing theatre.

The Opera Group was the venue’s first associate organisation. It co-produced The Enchanted Pig with the Young Vic in 2006 and is currently collaborating on a co-production of the musical Street Scene, which will open on July 17.

Young Vic artistic director David Lan told The Stage: “The main thing about the companies is that they do things that we don’t do. So the opera company does opera, Fevered Sleep specialises in working for a young audience and installations, and B3 Media do digital arts and film.

“In a way it is bringing us together. We are always looking for mutual benefit and that’s what this is about - creating circumstances where artists of different kinds can create things together that we couldn’t create on our own.”

The three companies will be based within the recently opened wing of the theatre - The Jerwood Pod - which was designed by architecture firm Haworth Tompkins and completes the venue’s £14 million rebuild that began in July 2004.

Commenting on the partnership, the Opera Group artistic director John Fulljames added: “The Young Vic is nurturing us through a process of growth and in doing so, is prompting a step-change in the longer-term stability and sustainability of our organisation.

“Our key shared aim is that the relationship should be transformational and create an organisation which can fly the nest at its conclusion.”

The work of Fevered Sleep comprises of visual theatre, installation and site specific performances. Its current projects include Brilliant, a production about light and darkness, for three to six-year-olds, which is the third in a trilogy of shows for children.

B3 was founded by creative entrepreneur and producer Marc Boothe to make connections between Britain’s multicultural communities and arts industries.