#SceneChange

Covid brings #Scenechange

A group of leading U.K. theatre designers have formed an online forum called #SceneChange, bringing designers together and providing resources on how to navigate the changes across the theatre sector.

#SceneChange will provide a platform for all theatre set and costume designers — established and emerging, associates and assistants. It also offers a place for freelance creatives from all theatre disciplines to join in dialogue, share experience and tackle the challenges ahead.

The platform will host a number of events over Zoom within the theatre community to discuss and share experiences on the impact of COVID-19.

Covid’s impact on Freelancers

Freelance creative artists make up a major part of the theatre ecology — of the 290,000 jobs in the U.K. theatre industry, for example, more than two-thirds are freelance or self-employed.

As visual artists, designers bring a unique skill set that can help re-imagine theatre spaces as the industry navigates its way back to live performance. #SceneChange aims to positively engage with buildings, directors and producers nationwide, to support and inform the process back to production.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the already precarious nature of the theatre industry, with the freelance workforce being particularly badly impacted. Organisers of the platform note, however, that it is also a moment to reset the industry and examine the issues that impede freelance creatives.

Shutdown creates #Scenechange

#SceneChange began as “Dialogue in Strange Times”- an email conversation between theatre designers as a response to the extraordinary situation faced with the shutdown of industry.

The aim of #SceneChange is to be an open, ever evolving, growing community, supporting ways of coming together and connecting and taking action for theatre and to navigate through these stormy waters. It’s a place for all: at its heart, set and costume designers (both established and emerging) associates, assistants. And a place for freelance creatives within the industry to join in dialogue and unity.

​Designers are the builders and shapers of the worlds we see on stage, dramaturgs of visual narrative through the use of people and space, our work pivotal in connecting the entire ecosystem of the theatre industry.

In this time of crisis designers are an essential part of the transformation that will see theatres being reopened and re-imagined and ideally positioned to be at the heart of discussion around how the theatre of the future will work in a pragmatic, equal and more sustainable way.