The Lowry announced their ‘Developed With’ 2022-24 cohort of artists, who will be part of their flagship development programme, on the 17th of November.
Earlier this year, a call was issued to artists across the north of England to apply for the ‘Developed With’ programme, The Lowry’s bespoke package which works with artists, both independent and collective, looking to further establish their creative practice.
Six artists as well as four associate artists were selected from an initial 170 applications to take the next step forward in their work.
One of these artists is a visually impaired and neurodivergent actor, theatre maker and creative captioner, Alice Christina-Corrigan, 27. She hopes that, coming from a working-class, disabled background, she can create pivotal work whilst also being entertaining and accessible.
Ms Christina-Corrigan said: “It all really started with my MA [degree]. That’s where I found my disability identity, my footprint, and realised there’s a power in which I can change the narrative for many others.”
Her theatre work focuses on creative access for the disabled being imperative, particularly for blind and deaf communities.
Ms Christina-Corrigan believes theatres across the nation should make a big change to become as creatively accessible as possible, in order to elevate storytelling through multi-sensory exploration.
She added: “It’s so important for me to send a bigger message to many high-scale theatres, who very often do not put access in their budget and will offer one show per national run with a BSL interpreter and there’s no captioning.
“I won’t be satisfied until every show on a stage is creatively accessible.”
As she takes inspiration from her surroundings and experiences, Ms Christina-Corrigan intends to stay humble and never back down from where she began her journey, where she had little to no contacts in the art industry, to inspire her audiences.
“‘You need to be more serious’ is something that I’ve been told and I was like, ‘Eh?’
“It still blows my head off how the last few years have gone, and I don’t want to lose that because I understand how *mad* I found it seeing people do stuff, and I never knew how to actually do it.
“I want to be a pioneer in engaging future people in whatever realm they want to.”
You can find out more about Alice Christina-Corrigan, including her second full-length play, ‘Fade’, here.
‘Developed With The Lowry’ also welcomed a three-man art collective, ‘Police Cops’, into their cohort as an associate artist, aiming to provide them with the same time, space and support promised to the chosen six artists.
Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe make up the multi award-winning, globally acclaimed comedy group based in London, who are largely grateful for The Lowry’s willingness to support them on their theatrical journey.
However, their success could have been put at major risk when the coronavirus pandemic struck worldwide in 2020, leading to a significant reduction of touring possibilities for ‘Police Cops’. Mr Parkinson recalled the financial struggles the group faced during this period:
“Our kind of work isn’t necessarily the type that is the easiest to get funded because it sits between theatre and comedy, so it doesn’t really deal with any super relevant political or social issues.”
Predominantly focusing on making people laugh, the group found difficulty in trying to push their art into good funding brackets for theatres.
‘Police Cops’ becoming an associate artist with The Lowry meant their work coming out of the pandemic had less restrictions.
“Otherwise, the pandemic really could have just bankrupted us as a company,” added Mr Parkinson.
Mr Roe is looking forward to audiences seeing the group’s future shows, as he believes they stand out from other comedy acts in the industry.
He said: “The joke count is very high. The way we stand out in theatre is that we really think about the visual aspect of our shows.
“We try to incorporate a lot of dance, visual jokes and make a holistic piece of theatre.”
The art collective recently finished a theatre run of ‘Police Cops: The Musical’, which Mr Hunt says is like: “An 80s action film on stage, complete with car chases, gunfights, and explosions.”
Find out more about the group and their journey before working with ‘Developed With The Lowry’, on the ‘Police Cops’ website.
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