Mind the Gap launches actors’ agency for learning disabled

Published Tuesday 24 June 2008 at 15:40 by Kevin Berry

Bradford-based theatre company Mind the Gap has launched the first actors’ agency dealing solely with learning disabled performers.

Set up in response to increased industry demand, the Mind the Gap’s Actors’ Agency already has more than 20 learning disabled actors on its books. All have been trained by Mind the Gap and many already have experience of national theatre tours, TV and radio dramas and voice-over work.

Formed in 1988, the theatre company works with learning disabled actors and has launched specialist training schemes at vocational stage schools and toured plays nationally. It is the largest disability-related theatre company outside London.

Speaking at the launch, Ruth Piggott, the agency’s co-ordinator said: “The agency will provide a support worker to travel with the actor and stay with them if they are touring. That support worker has to be paid for by the employer but our rates are very competitive. We will also help with the complicated issue of employers paying actors who are on benefit.”

At the launch, held in a studio at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, seven agency actors showcased their talents with excerpts from plays such as A Servant of Two Masters, Cooking With Elvis and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Piggott emphasised that theatres and TV companies are now more willing to take on actors with a learning disability.

“Having a learning disabled actor in a cast has raised expectations,” she added. “We have had cases of parts being rewritten when writers and directors have realised what our actors can do.”

In 2002 Mind the Gap won The Stage Award for Outstanding Achievement in Regional Theatre, presented as part of the annual TMA awards.