ELEVATE Festival, a celebration of new work by local writers, companies and performers, returns to Bath Theatre Royal for a second year, from 2nd to 7th September in the Egg theatre.
The festival is presented by the theatre’s Engage programme, which is dedicated to creating participatory opportunities across Bath for creatively curious adults and numerous initiatives at the Egg for young people and families.
Elevate burst onto a pop-up stage at the Theatre Royal for its inaugural year in 2023, welcoming artists from across the region during a two-week programme featuring 140 participants from 27 companies. For this second year, the festival will be based at the Egg theatre. The aim is to showcase a range of performances from the local creative community – last year this included new writing, dance, theatre for families, rehearsed readings, drag entertainment and scratch nights – presented by a locally-based amateur, emerging, graduate or professional performers from Bath, Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Katherine Lazare, the Theatre Royal’s head of community engagement, says: “The beauty of Elevate is not only does it provide a professional platform for local theatre companies to showcase work, it also connects local theatre companies, performers and audiences. Celebrating grass-roots theatre in this way also supports and builds the local cultural ecology. We’re very excited to see who is going to apply to take part this year!”
• The Engage programme is supported by the Beryl Billings Charitable Trust. The late Beryl Billings, whose stage name was Margot Boyd, was born and educated in Bath, always keeping a strong affection for the city. When she died in 2008 at the age of 94, she stated in her will that she wanted to encourage local people to experience the excitement of being involved in theatre. The Beryl Billings Charitable Trust funded the Ben Hur project and subsequently the Engage programme at the Theatre Royal Bath was established, continuing today as a dedicated programme supporting adults from all backgrounds and levels of experience to get involved in theatre.