The upskilling workshops are part of our brand-new Artist Development Programme, designed to support emerging disabled artists in developing their professional artistic career and practice. Led by leading disability arts organisations, you will have the opportunity to develop skills to grow your artistic practice.
What can I expect from an upskilling workshop?
When and where are the workshops?
Programme:
Monday 7th September 2026, 3-5pm - ‘Creative Leadership: Making Space to Lead’ with Corali
Dancers from Corali will talk about how to enable learning disabled performers take a lead role in creative processes. By exploring Corali’s own methods of making original dance works, they will showcase how learning disabled creatives can grow in confidence and develop as leaders.
Monday 14th September 2026, 3-5pm - Top Tips for Self-Producing with Alison King (Chief Executive, Turtle Key Arts)
Want to understand what a producer does? Learn about the logistics behind setting up your project, budget tips, funding, how to work with a team and a producer, as well as tips on how to self produce at the beginning of your career journey.
Monday 21st September 2026, 3-5pm - ‘Pathways to Developing Disabled Leadership in the Arts’ with Extant
Artistic Director, Dr. Maria Oshodi of Extant, the UK’s longest performing arts company of visually impaired artists, will lead a session on pathways to developing disabled leadership in the arts. Referencing the different methods which Extant has established over the last 30 years, this session will explore the challenges and successes of practical and tested ideas, such as peer academy theatre training, in-house Artistic Director training and organisational dramaturgy; all through an interactive and lively approach.
Monday 28th September 2026, 3-5pm - TBC
Monday 5th October 2026, 3-5pm - 'Presenting Me' with Access All Areas
Access All Areas’ Artistic Director, Nick Llewellyn, and Associate Director, Emma Selwyn, discuss the ideas behind some of Access All Areas’ shows. They explore autobiographical performance-making through videos and practical demonstrations. Workshop participants will reflect on how they can draw on their own experiences, and use these experiences to think through how to develop potential new contemporary shows.
For more information and to sign up, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Part of Punchdrunk's Community Workshops
This workshop invites participants to explore how our lived experiences can become a starting point for making theatre. Through playful, practical and reflective exercises, you’ll explore ways of transforming personal memories, feelings, stories and fragments of experience into creative material for performance.
With a particular focus on grief and loss, you’ll consider how these experiences might be explored through the body, voice, movement, writing and text, and in the compositions created together.
KEY INFORMATION:
For more information and to sign up, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Applications are now open for Sprint Festival 2027.
FESTIVAL OVERVIEW:
The most intense hit you’ll find, anywhere in the UK, of ambitious new performance: CPT’s annual SPRINT festival is back! Every Spring, we throw open our doors to artists at the very start of their careers making bold and brand new work. (And "early career" hasn't got anything to do with age - whether you're 18 or 108, we want to hear from you). For four weeks, that work populates our stage, twisting theatre into new shapes and fashioning fantastic experiences for audiences.
In years gone by, SPRINT has showcased early work by artists including Sh!t Theatre, Vijay Patel, Liv Ello, Frankie Thompson, Nina Bowers and more. If you’ve got a current, compelling and cutting-edge performance project brewing, one that needs support or a showcase to be its best self, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.
CALLOUT FOR ARTISTS:
The majority of programming slots will be for work that is finished and performance-ready by March 2026. We will also consider works-in-progress and ‘scratch’ performances.
We welcome and encourage applications from artists from a socio-economic background under-represented in the arts; and/or who identify as:
*This includes people of Black Caribbean, Black African, South Asian, East Asian, South East Asian, Middle Eastern, Arab, Latinx, Jewish, Romany and Irish Traveller heritage.
WHAT WE ARE AND AREN'T LOOKING FOR:
We want: Performance the likes of which we’ve never seen before. New shows, new ways of making theatre, new experiences for audiences.
We don’t want: Revivals of classic plays; academic projects; dance (as opposed to dance-theatre). Much as we love all that stuff, it’s not what Sprint exists to support and stage.
WHAT WE PROVIDE:
The CPT arrangement with SPRINT artists is flexible according to the needs of each show, but our default offer in 2027 is:
DEADLINE: Midday 23 September
For more information and to apply, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Fearless. Collaborative. Powered by young voices. Generator is ThickSkin’s ambitious company for young professional theatre makers, designed to launch the next generation of fearless talent.
The Generator Company will create a brand-new piece of theatre — devised from the ground up, in collaboration with our Artistic Director. Developed and performed at our studio in the heart of Wigan, this show will spotlight raw talent, local stories, and ThickSkin’s trademark visual and physical style.
Sign up to our open auditions for this paid opportunity to perform in ThickSkin’s Generator Company.
Places are allocated on first come first served basis until full.
ThickSkin is looking for ten talented young performers aged 18-25 to join our Generator Company next Spring. Over two intensive weeks in Wigan, you’ll create and perform a brand-new theatre piece, while fully immersing yourself in our innovative creative process.
KEY INFO:
For more information and to apply, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Write Night is a series of monthly sessions for anyone interested in writing for the stage.
Sessions are on the first Wednesday evening of every month, run by Soho Theatre’s own iconic Bombay-born, London-based Creative Associate Pooja Sivaraman (Clean Break, Theatre503, Coney) and award winning Walthamstow playwright Sonali Bhattacharyya (Bristol Old Vic, Young Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, BBC)
Whether you’re a total beginner or a more experienced writer, Write Night is open to everyone!
Each session will be organised around a theme and you can book them as standalone sessions, or you can book the whole lot! Totally up to you.
SESSIONS:
Wed 2 Sep 7pm-9pm: Adaptation
A workshop all about adapting existing materials into a new play, from novels to films to documentary and verbatim.
Wed 7 Oct 7pm-9pm: Performing Activism
A workshop looking at how theatre troupes around the world use the stage as a medium of protest. What are the tools to keep in hand when you’re writing about something that makes you angry?
Wed 4 Nov 7pm-9pm: Rap, Rhyme and Musical theatre
A workshop all about how to write lyrics and rhyme for musicals and gig theatre
Wed 2 Dec 7pm-9pm: Writing is Rewriting
A workshop on the redrafting process and how to crack pivotal scenes
There will be teaching, writing exercises and discussion (not to mention tea and biscuits). If any or all of the above sessions sound interesting to you, we’d love for you to pop by and try it out.
If you have any questions at all, email us at engagement@sohotheatre.com – we’re happy to help.
For more information and to book, click the Opportunity Info link below!
If you’re thinking about trying stand-up for the first time, our Comedy Lab: Stand Up is for you.
Our 10-week Stand-Up Comedy Lab will help you find your comedic voice and hone your writing and performance skills. You will be working with course leader and iconic comedian Sikisa, as well as other guest artists, to create your own 5-minute set which you will perform in front of a live and supportive audience at the end of term.
The Comedy Lab: Stand Up group meet weekly on Saturdays, with a public sharing at the end which will take place on a Monday evening at our Dean Street venue.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
We ask that participants commit to attending all 10 weeks. Please note the above is a rough outline and subject to change.
FEES:
£150 (partial and full bursaries are available to those on Universal Credit and other welfare benefits. However, if cost is a barrier to participating, contact us at engagement@sohotheatre.com and we can discuss payment options)
DEADLINE: Monday 7th September 2026 at noon
For more information and to apply, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Create a new character, unlock your creativity and find what makes you uniquely funny on our Character Comedy Lab.
Join the long-standing tradition of character comics on the UK comedy scene (Diane Morgan, Victoria Wood, Alan Partridge, Lolly Adefope etc).
Find freedom, joy and hilarity in yourself, by pretending to be somebody else. Over 10 weeks you’ll be workshopping your own comedy character(s), exploring how to improvise and find new ideas in front of an audience, as well as how to generate material and take jokes from page to stage. You’ll walk away with a host of practical skills required to improve your writing and performance, feedback from peers and industry professionals, and a short new character act to build on further. There is a public sharing at the end of the course.
The Lab is run by the fabulous Jonathan Oldfield, with support from multiple guest artists.
This is an intensive and supportive environment suitable for anyone interested in trying solo character comedy in a positive and nurturing space.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
We ask that participants commit to attending all 10 sessions. Please note the above is a rough outline and subject to change.
FEES:
£150 (Partial and full bursaries are available to those on Universal Credit and other welfare benefits. However, if cost is a barrier to participating, contact us at engagement@sohotheatre.com and we can discuss payment options
DEADLINE: Monday 7th September 2026 at noon
For more information and to apply, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Curious to create a drag alter-ego, want to give lip-syncing a go? Or want to sing or dance live for a cabaret audience? Step into London’s cabaret scene for the first time with our Cabaret & Drag Lab.
Our 10-week Cabaret & Drag Lab is a supportive and playful space for participants to explore the world of drag and cabaret for the first time. Our experienced facilitators and guest artists will take you through fun and safe exercises and games to help you generate material and develop skills so you can create a new act all your own. Whether you’re interested in drag, burlesque, lip syncing, live vocals, or any of the many weird and wonderful aspects of the cabaret world – this Lab covers a broad range of interests.
Over the Lab, you will be working to create your own 4-minute set which you will perform at the end of term in front of a live and supportive audience.
This term of Cabaret & Drag Lab will be co-led by living legend Me the Drag Queen together with icon of cabaret Demi Noire, with support from multiple guest artists.
The Cabaret and Drag group meet weekly on Saturdays, with a public sharing at the final session which will take place on a Monday evening at our Dean Street venue.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
We ask that participants commit to attending all 10 weeks. Please note the above is a rough outline and subject to change.
FEES:
£150 (Partial and full bursaries are available to those on Universal Credit and other welfare benefits. However, if cost is a barrier to participating, contact us at engagement@sohotheatre.com and we can discuss payment options
DEADLINE: Monday 7th September 2026 at noon
For more information and to apply, click the Opportunity Info link below!
A relaxed space where artists come together to share ideas, opportunities and resources.
The perfect chance to meet new creative people, connect with creative orgs in Bristol and learn about how they support early-career creatives. PLUS — each Co-LAB we drop some new creative opportunities from local arts orgs. Join us for a fun, chilled evening of interesting chats and free nibbles, and leave with new connections and a finger on the pulse of upcoming opportunities for creatives in Bristol.
KEY INFORMATION:
Want to do more creative freelancing work, but not sure where to begin? Self Start is a practical workshop that will walk you through the nuts and bolts of freelance work as a creative.
COVERS:
Leave with a better understanding of the realities of freelance life and a toolbox full of producer tips & tricks that you can adapt to suit your own creative practice.
KEY INFORMATION:
