Creative Steps funds the professional, business and organisational development of artists who have experienced barriers to careers within the arts.
Creative Steps for Individuals is for supporting career development, and NOT for creating new work or project delivery. For example, creating artwork to sell online would not be applicable but working with a mentor to develop your painting skills would be.
We want artists to identify exactly what they need to progress and professionalise their artistic career, and to remain open to exploring different ways of doing this with our support.
We recognise that everybody’s needs are different and that professional development varies from individual to individual. However, these are some of the things that your application could include:
When completing the budget, you should include the following:
We expect all applicants to pay freelancers the standard industry rates as a minimum. If people are providing their time in-kind, we would need to know why and have this confirmed in a letter of support from them.
The Open Fund for Individuals is one of Creative Scotland’s key funding programmes, supporting the wide range of activity initiated by artists, writers, producers and other creative practitioners in Scotland. The overall annual budget for this fund is £5 million.
The fund is intended to support periods of research, development and/or delivery of creative activity, such as specific projects and productions for up to 24 months. It can support an individual’s time where this is related to specific creative outcomes.
We will ask you to tell us the start and end date for this activity and to describe the outcomes, benefits and impacts that you wish to achieve.
Freelance and self-employed artists and creative practitioners living in Scotland who are at least 18 years old are eligible to apply. You must have a UK bank account in your name.
If you are not a self-employed individual or a sole trader, you may be eligible for the National Lottery Open Fund for Organisations.
Please read the guidance for full information on eligibility.
You can apply for between £500 and £50,000.
As standard, if your application request is between £500 and £20,000 you will hear the outcome in 10 weeks. If your application request is between £20,001 and £50,000 you will hear the outcome in 14 weeks.
Please see above for details of our 25/26 Christmas closure and the effects it will have on our processing timelines.
Actor-musicians are increasingly in-demand performers who combine first-rate acting ability with a high level of musicianship.
Mountview’s Actor Musicianship course develops these dual skills to the highest level, enabling graduates to combine them in their performance.
Whilst a high level of prior musical experience is a pre-requisite, it is not necessary to have achieved formal music qualifications before applying.
COURSE CONTENT AND DELIVERY
Study takes place over three 12-week terms a year for three years. It is an actor training programme with specialised music elements. Students work in small classes and receive over 25 hours of direct teaching time each week, including one-to-one singing and instrumental lessons.
The course is delivered through classes, projects, workshops and performance opportunities. During the course students engage in a range of performance projects, working on Shakespeare, contemporary plays, and musicals as well as devising original work. The first half of each term is devoted to skills classes whilst in the second half of each term these skills are applied to performance projects.
In the second year, skills are further explored in collaboration classes which include peer integration and team teaching to enhance your creativity and help you to make connections between subjects.
Additionally, there is time given to tailored ‘surgeries’ to focus on detail and help develop independence and confidence in each individual’s practice.
Mountview is currently the only UK drama school to offer Directing, Dramatic Writing and Producing as three distinct, specialised pathways within a single, unified Creative Practice MA framework. The course is designed for multi-hyphenate practitioners who are excited by collaboration and meeting the demands of the twenty-first century creative industries.
By bringing directors, writers and producers into one ecosystem, the course mirrors the professional world by fostering creative partnerships through shared engagement with modes of collaboration, creative enterprise, dramatic structures and critical contexts.
Students on the Dramatic Writing pathway develop an in-depth knowledge of dramatic structures and the core competencies for writing across different forms and styles. The course develops an understanding and critical awareness of current practice through engagement with industry practitioners and academics. You will be mentored by award-winning playwright Roy Williams OBE (Death of England National Theatre, Sucker Punch Royal Court), who oversees aspects of the course as Distinguished Visiting Artist.
The course concludes with the opportunity to put your learning into practice through the staging of a public facing, fully-realised festival of new work. VIEW Festival allows students to develop their pathway specific skills while also collaborating closely with the Producing, Directing and Performance students.
Our MA Creative Practice graduates leave with an established network of industry contacts and prepared for high-impact careers as Playwrights, Screenwriters, Dramaturgs, Directors, Creative Leaders, Theatre Makers, Artistic Directors, Commercial and Independent Producers and Venue Leaders.
STAFF AND PRACTITIONERS
The Creative Practice teaching team is led by Hamish Pirie and Dawn Ingleson as Joint Course Leaders, alongside Roy Williams as Distinguished Visiting Artist. Dawn worked extensively at the National Theatre as a creative producer and has also taught at LSBU, while Hamish’s directing credits include work at the Royal Court, Donmar Warehouse, Paines Plough and Traverse Theatre. Roy is a multi-award winning writer whose credits include Death of England: The Plays (National Theatre), The Lonely Londoners (Kiln and Jermyn Street Theatre) and Sucker Punch (Royal Court, Olivier Award nomination).
In addition to working alongside the core teaching team, MA Creative Practice students also benefit from industry masterclasses specific to their pathway, led by the world’s most prestigious creative powerhouses. Recent MA Creative Practice sessions have featured:
Illuminate Drama Teacher CPD Day is back for its fifth year on the South Coast!
Join us in person for a full day of inspiring workshops, featuring exciting opportunities to meet and talk with theatre education specialists, industry professionals, and fellow drama teachers.
This year we will have three workshops throughout the day that will each take a deep dive into different practices over the course of two hours. You will get to partake in all the following workshops:
Workshops will take place across both of our venues: Mayflower Theatre and Mayflower Studios.
There will also be the exclusive opportunity to see Blood Brothers at Mayflower Theatre for an additional £20 to round off a theatrical and inspiring day!
Please note spaces are limited and available on a first-come-first-served basis. Payment must be made before Friday 19 December 2026 otherwise your place will be released.
ACTING WORKSHOPS Further Than The Edge Productions are running weekly Open Level Acting Workshops for adults in two Camden venues. A motivating, fun and safe space for beginners, and people with experience who want to develop existing skills.
Develop your creativity, your skills of voice, space and movement, work collaboratively on improvisation and scripts, have fun, build your confidence.
These are open level workshops, so no previous acting training is required, but you must be prepared to work with other people - communicate and collaborate, and move around the space. You will also read/use extracts of playtexts/scripts.
Where and When:
2 sessions per week, 2 different venues - Wednesdays and Fridays
mornings 10am - 12.30pm
starting
Friday Oct 3rd to Dec 5th - Euston venue
and
Weds Oct 8th to Dec 10th - Swiss Cottage venue
Join the Edinburgh Fringe Society for £5 per year to have a hand in shaping the festival's future!
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society is the organisation that underpins the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Its core aims are to support participants, assist Fringe audiences and celebrate the Fringe and what it stands for all over the world.
As an open membership organisation, we're always looking for new and diverse voices to join the conversation and help shape the future of the Society.
Membership costs £5 a year to cover administration costs and members are responsible for electing the Board of Directors, adopting the accounts and appointing the auditors each year. By choosing to become a member of the Fringe Society, you play a significant role in one of the world’s most incredible arts festivals.
Membership to the Fringe Society is annual and runs for 12 months from the point at which you join. Before your membership expires we will remind you to renew your membership so you can continue to make a contribution to the Society.
The founding principle at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – to be an open-access arts event that welcomes anyone with a story to tell and a venue to host them – still guides the work of the Society today.
It’s our policy that no single individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform on the Fringe.
The Society was formed in 1958, in recognition of the fact that more and more performers were coming to Edinburgh despite not being included in the Edinburgh International Festival programme. Its earliest tasks included providing information to artists, publishing the Fringe Programme and creating a central box office. In 1969 the Society was incorporated as a limited company and its constitution published.
Unlike many other festivals, our constitution celebrates the fact that the Society does not vet the Fringe Programme. That means we have no artistic director and that the programme is shaped by the initiative and vision of performers willing to showcase their work here.
For more information and to become a member, click the Opportunity Info link below!
Would you like to see your writing performed by professional actors? Are you interested in learning more about writing for stage?
Wac Arts is thrilled to continue their intergenerational series with a free creative writing project exploring how theatre and storytelling can promote positive conversations and relationships across the community.
They are looking for young people aged 16 – 24 with an interest in creative writing and theatre to take part in a series of weekly workshops with members of the University of the Third Age at Wac Arts. Under the guidance of playwright Beth Flintoff, Associate Playwright at The Royal Court, the group will explore key aspects of writing for theatre, receive 1:1 script development support and create a series of pieces that will be performed by professional actors.
Dates: 1 June - 13 July, 16.30pm - 18.30pm
Final Sharing Date: 19 July, 13.00pm - 17.00pm
Location: Wac Arts, 213 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 4QP
Are you a playwright based in the UK who would love to work with Middle Child? From next week, for one-week only, we're accepting scripts so that we can get to know writers we may work with in the future.
All of the details, including what we are and are not looking for, and where to send your script, are on our website (link in bio).
Pictured is our 2025 production of Biting Point by Sid Sagar, who participated in our 2020 associate writer programme following an open call out.
In the first week of May, Middle Child will accept submissions of full theatre scripts, for our literary manager to read. All you need to do is send it to scripts@middlechildtheatre.co.uk with your name and a location. Please include page numbers.
We want to read a script that shows off your voice and what you like to write about. We’re interested in untold stories that make sense of the world today. We are also only looking for one script per writer.
This Masters gives you a practical and theoretical engagement with the many forms of writing and production for theatre. Blending practice, theory and history, the programme is designed for those wishing to develop playwriting skills and knowledge of script development and support, opening the way to many theatre roles, including dramaturgy. You will learn about the changing roles of the playwright and dramaturge in contemporary theatre in the UK and elsewhere around the world, and be supported to define your own creative practice while developing valuable transferable skills in research, project management and critical reflection.
WHY THIS PROGRAMME
