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Old Vic New Voices (OVNV) is The Old Vic’s Education, Community and Emerging Talent programme, which aims to nurture talent, inspire young people and open up The Old Vic to new and diverse audiences, working with around 8,000 people each year. The programme was founded in 2001 by Kate Packenham, then an associate producer to Sally Greene, The Old Vic’s Chief Executive. The current director is Steve Winter, who joined in 2004.

Talent

OVNV offers networking and training events, free rehearsal space and cash injections to help develop emerging theatre practitioners. Over the past seven years the programme has nurtured emerging actors, directors, producers and playwrights through a number of projects.

The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices

The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices is an annual theatre project co-produced with New York’s 24 Hour Company that began in 2005 and grew out of a fundraising celebrity version. Over the span of a single night and day 26 emerging theatre practitioners that have never worked together before must write, produce and perform new plays. At 10pm the companies, each consisting of a playwright, a director, a producer and a handful of actors, is put together for the first time. The playwrights have all night to come up with a script; cast and crew have from 7am to rehearse it and learn their lines, before the play is performed on The Old Vic stage the next evening at 8pm.

Alumni from the project include writers Mike Bartlett and Joel Horwood, Paines Plough’s co-directors James Grieve and George Perrin and actors including Bryony Hannah, Charity Wakefield and Gethin Anthony. Producers from the project currently hold senior posts at the Donmar Warehouse, Lyric Hammersmith and Nimax Theatres.

After a run of eight years, OVNV announced that there would be no project in 2013 but that it may return in the future.

The TS Eliot US/UK Exchange

The TS Eliot US/UK Exchange ran from 2010-2012 and encouraged collaboration between emerging UK and US theatre practitioners.

In 2010 and 2011, the project offered 50 British and 50 American artists the chance to explore theatrical life on the opposite side of the Atlantic. In its inaugural year, the project was launched by actor Jeremy Irons.

In 2011 The Old Vic’s Artistic Director Kevin Spacey praised the programme, stating that "The TS Eliot US/UK Exchange shows The Old Vic's dedication to encouraging transatlantic collaboration. Last year's programme was an extraordinary success and we have found another exciting team to forge lasting creative partnerships across the Atlantic. There is no doubt that relationships created on this project will bear fruit for many years to come".

In 2012, the project culminated by presenting five new plays by emerging American playwrights, with UK actors, directors and producers at The Old Vic. Alumni from the project include playwright Ella Hickson and actress and playwright Sarah Solemani.

Time Warner Ignite

In 2010, OVNV partnered with the American media corporation Time Warner to launch Time Warner Ignite, a two-year programme to spark creativity among 18-25 year old emerging artists with the production of four new plays at the new Waterloo East Theatre.

The two-year programme offered workshops, commissions and theatrical and film production opportunities to members of OVNV’s emerging talent programme. Around each of The Old Vic's four annual main-house shows, four emerging writers were commissioned to write a short play response. These plays were then produced as one-off special industry showings at Waterloo East theatre with emerging actors, directors and producers.

At each of the eight presentations, audiences voted for one of the four plays to be adapted into films. The creative teams worked with emerging film-makers and industry mentors to create a professional short, which were uploaded to IdeasTap.com. Four of these films were selected via an online poll on the website and shown at a VIP industry screening in 2012.

Kevin Spacey, said of the programme, "As part of our commitment to professional development, we are excited to offer a totally new programme of opportunity, supported by one of the best know names in global entertainment. As an emerging artist, this programme is the sort of opportunity I would have jumped at."

Coming Up

In 2011, OVNV collaborated with IdeasTap on the Coming Up festival, which ran from 21st February to 4 March.

The festival gave funding and creative freedom to six producers aged under 30 to programme an arts festival. The producers were shortlisted from a selection of 200 and each put on a different piece of work.

Each producer received £6,000 from a total of £75,000 invested by philanthropist and IdeasTap Chairman Peter De Haan; the remainder of the funding was spent on organisation.

The festival took place at Debut, a venue under the arches of London Bridge, and featured wrestling, a silent opera, a folk hip-hop collaboration and a theatrical cooking banquet. 8,000 tickets for the event were given to the public for free.

From 7-9 July 2011, OVNV and IdeasTap produced a late-night version, Coming Up Later, at The Old Vic Tunnels, which featured burlesque, live comedy and a club night.

Edinburgh Season

In Summer 2012, in partnership with Underbelly and IdeasTap, OVNV presented five pieces of new writing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Over 265 pieces of new work applied to be part of the season.

The winning plays were Bitch Boxer by Charlotte Josephine, Chapel Street by Luke Barnes, Glory Dazed by Cat Jones, One Hour Only by Sabrina Mahfouz, and Strong Arm by Finlay Roberston.

Kevin Spacey said of the project: ‘The work selected promises to be of outstanding quality, and I am thrilled that we are able to help it gain the profile it deserves, as well as provide the artists producing it with a launch-pad for their careers."

Partnership with IdeasTap

In 2009, OVNV formed a partnership with IdeasTap, a creative online network and funding body for emerging arts talent. The partnership created numerous bespoke, member-led projects, including:

The Theatre 503 award (2009) which offered the members of www.ideastap.com a fully funded production with a four-week run at a high-profile London venue. Turning You On (2009), a course offering promotional skills that culminated in a viral advert used to promote IdeasTap.

• Script Doctor (2009), which gave all the writers who submitted a play to the Old Vic New Voices.
• Theatre503 Award 2009 an opportunity to win a 20-minute one-to-one session with a literary professional.
• Symposium (2010), an event inspired by Old Vic production of Inherit the Wind, that included a mix of new plays and debates focusing on the issues of the play.
• Producers Critique (2010), a project in which Old Vic New Voices worked in conjunction with Stage One to offer a free place on their prestigious Workshop for New Producers.
• Shoestring Theatre (2010), which offered workshops focusing on six key areas that can be tricky for a production company to navigate when putting on a small-scale theatre production with a limited budget.
• The 24 Hour Plays: Old Vic New Voices (2011 and 2012).
• Coming Up/Coming Up Later (2011).
• Epidemic (2012).
• OVNV Edinburgh Season (2012).

2013

In March 2013, The Stage reported that OVNV had announced an overhaul for the talent department, opening it up to people over the age of 30 for the first time and launching a space dedicated to the creation of new work, The OVNV Lab.

The OVNV Lab is a rehearsal facility open six days a week, and designed to be a place to meet, devise, chat and collaborate free of charge. In its first two months, the OVNV Lab helped develop around 40 projects.

It was also announced that through The TS Eliot Commissions, 20 writers from the UK and the USA will be commissioned over two years to write new work. These writers will be mentored by professionals associated with the Old Vic and some of the plays will be performed as part of an OVNV season in the West End.

Other initiatives include Eversheds 20, sponsored by City Law firm Eversheds, which provides 20 actors with professional mentoring so they have a better opportunity to succeed in a highly competitive industry, and OVNV Startups, which awards start-up grants of £500 to allow new work to get off the ground at the research and development stage.

Talent Alumni

Alumni from OVNV Talent projects include:

• Charity Wakefield
• Gethin Anthony
• Nick Payne
• Ella Hickson
• Sarah Solemani
• Mike Bartlett
• Bryony Hannah
• Joel Horwood
• Jessica Raine
• Joanna Christie
• Jamie Lloyd
• Vanessa Kirby

Education

OVNV has worked with over 60,000 students from schools across London through their Education programme. The education projects give schools access to free theatre tickets to every Old Vic production, alongside bespoke learning experiences at the theatre, in the classroom and online.

Schools’ Club

The flagship education project Schools’ Club works with 40 specially selected schools from across London for a full academic year. Each school receives a pre-show workshop for every play which explores the plot, characters, themes and contemporary relevance of our productions before watching the show at the Theatre. Schools also receive a Teachers’ Pack; teacher training sessions throughout the year and backstage tours.

Staging Success

OVNV ran Staging Success, sponsored by Barclays Capital, from 2010 to 2012 to give students access to leading industry professionals. The programme gave schools the opportunity to bring 30 students each to the Old Vic Theatre to learn about how plays are produced, marketed and staged and designed. The students took part in workshops with industry professionals to decide how they would take a play ‘from page to stage’ before receiving free tickets to The Old Vic’s main house show in the evening.

Think Tank

OVNV have a strong link with the Whitgift School in Croydon, a specialist school that focuses on co-curricular activities such as drama, music and sport. The Old Vic’s Artistic Director Kevin Spacey has visited the school for a masterclass. Following on from this, Think Tank, a unique creative arts project aimed at primary-aged school children, was established by OVNV and Whitgift in 2011 to identify and develop promising talent.

Health Wealth

In 2012, OVNV produced Health Wealth, a theatre in education project that toured to 46 schools schools, playing to 7,786 11-14 year olds. The project featured a workshop and a play written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm focusing on issue surrounding health and obesity. The play built on the research carried out with schools, teachers, students and health experts for the Community project Epidemic.

Community

OVNV’s Community programme offers members of the local community free workshops, theatre ticket offers and produces large-scale theatre productions (22). The productions are performed and stage-managed by volunteers from across London, and written to reflect concerns raised by the local community.

Somme Theatre (2006)

OVNV’s first community production, Somme Theatre, was a collaboration with the Imperial War Museum which saw a cast of locals perform a play, On the Middle Day, about the Battle of the Somme. The play was staged to mark the 90th anniversary of the battle in which the British Army lost 58,000 troops, and included a cameo appearance by the The Old Vic’s artistic director Kevin Spacey as the voice of King George V.

Somme Theatre was funded by a £46,100 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The project was named the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded heritage project at The National Lottery Awards in 2007; the awards were chosen by the public.

Branded (2008)

OVNV’s second community production, Branded, was written by Simon Bent, and staged at The Old Vic from 1-3 May 2008, for five performances, all free of charge. The piece, commissioned as part of OVNV’s Go for Green outreach and community project, featured a cast and crew of 50, aged from 16 to 60, selected through a series of London-wide open auditions. The play featured used a diverse selection of skills, including free-running, poetry, dance and physical theatre, to tell the story of the launch of an environmentally-friendly range of training shoes.

Funders of the programme included Adventure Ecology, HSBC and the Hunter Foundation.

Platform (2010)

Platform was a promenade piece staged for a week at The Old Vic Tunnels that looked at what it meant to be a Londoner in 2010. The show featured a largely non-professional cast and crew of 120 people, ranging in age from 17 to 75 from diverse backgrounds and professions, including students, city workers, former drug addicts and a 74-year-old former hospital social worker.

The script for Platform was created from 200 hours of interviews by writers Duncan Macmillan and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, themselves part of OVNV's emerging talent programme.

The British Theatre Guide said: “Platform is truly inventive and its affection and passion for London and her people unmistakeably shine through".

The Evening Standard described the project as “a striking testament to [The Old Vic’s] imperviousness to arts cuts.

Kevin Spacey said of the project: "I'm delighted we're doing our third community show and have managed to pull off something as remarkable and crazily ambitious as a 120-strong acting company. The show pulls all these stories of different Londoners together. And what's really pleasing is that it's so positive and upbeat about the city".

Epidemic (2012)

In 2012 Old Vic New Voices produced the community musical Epidemic at The Old Vic Tunnels (29). The production focused on the public health issues of obesity and mental health and was backed by the Wellcome Trust. Written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, the production was the culmination of 18 months of research including one-on-one interviews, group workshops, creative writing sessions, and community events. It focused on the character of Marlon, who needs help from a system he doesn't trust and runs away to find answers; the musical featured 10 new songs.

Epidemic won an Arts and Health Award from the Royal Society for Public Health in recognition of “innovative theatre work highlighting the major public health challenges of mental illness and obesity”.

The Old Vic Community Company

In 2013, it was announced that, building on the multi award-winning community work already undertaken, OVNV will create London’s largest inclusive Community Company, reaching out to the most talented and outspoken individuals from all walks of life, who want to make a difference to their community. The Company will explore shared social issues, empowering participants with the skills and platforms to express themselves collectively as theatre makers. Over three years, 200 people will take part in workshops, projects, pop-up performances and theatre productions. There will also be opportunities for aspiring writers to be part of the project through a Writers on Attachment programme.