Hidden Door 2016

Nov 16 2015 | By Thom Dibdin More

Open call for theatre proposals

The Hidden Door pop-up arts festival is to return to this year’s venue in 2016 and is calling for proposals for ten pieces of theatre to stage.

Hidden Door 2016 will run Friday 27 May to Saturday 4 June 2016 returning to the disused city centre site at King’s Stables Road, known as the Hidden Courtyard, for a second time.

The Hidden Courtyard viewed from above. Photo Hidden Door

Organisers are calling for applications from artists who wish to show and perform at the event. There is an open submission process for proposals with a deadline of Sunday 29 November.

The 80 metre long cobbled courtyard is surrounded by disused office and garage spaces. The 2015 event saw some 40 art installation spaces, two theatres, two live music venues, a cinema and three bars.

Although the site is in the process of being bought for development, the planning application is still being progressed. This has given Hidden Door a chance to bring the site to artistic life for what is expected to be the last time, and fill it with a variety of upcoming Scottish artists.

leaped at the chance

David Martin, the festival’s creative director said: “At the time of this year’s festival we never thought this would be an option as we were led to believe to site would be undergoing development shortly after we moved out.

“But when we were told it would still be available, we obviously leaped at the chance. It’s such a fantastic venue, and the opportunity to use it one last time is too good to pass up.”

Melanie Jordan as Lady Macbeth in Ludens Ensemble’s MacBeth in Silence. Photo: Hidden Door

The organisers expect the 2016 event to feature about 40 artists, six nights of live music, 15 theatre performances and programmes of live poetry and film. They will also be programming a series of talks and discussion events on issues surrounding the development of city centre sites like King’s Stables Road.

Hidden Door aims to be an opportunity for emerging creative practitioners working in or connected to Scotland to try out ambitious projects that will develop their practice.

Open Call

It is looking for ten theatre projects from the open call. These will be curated alongside five projects that will form an invited theatre programme.

The theatre proposals should fulfil the remit of being “experimental, yet accessible; flexible enough to work site-specifically once they have been placed and help position Hidden Door at the cutting edge of the contemporary arts in Scotland”.

The application deadline is Sunday 29 November at 11:59pm and successful applicants will be notified by email by 31 December, 2015. Hidden door will pay a certain level of expenses, but no artist fees. It expects companies to help with elements of the totally volunteer-organised festival.

The range of theatre productions at Hidden Door 2015 was extensive, from Musselburgh youth company Scratch the Surface’s semi-devised production Mirrors (Æ review) to Ludens Ensemble’s work-in-progress Macbeth in Silence (Æ review) via Siege Perilous’s take on The Lower Depths (Æ review) and Annie E Lord’s entrancing piece of site-specific storytelling, Hooves (Æ review).

Full details of the application and application forms are available on the Hidden Door website: http://hiddendoorblog.org/call-for-proposals-2016/theatre-and-performance-open-call-for-proposals/