'Tales of Spring and Winter' is a creative and critical investigation into women making theatre within and for fractured communities, in the wake of violence, or in the shadow of historical conflicts, around the globe. We will be working directly with artists from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Palestine, Serbia, Sri Lanka and India. The central unifying theme of Tales of Spring and Winter is dialogue between the generations, in the broadest sense: encounters between old and young; transitions from past to present; historical regeneration and renewal; the return of spring after winter. Our aim is to find out what underlying and particular qualities women theatre-makers bring to the processes of generational bridge-building, in post-conflict, diasporic or fractured communities across the globe. This project is conceived as the first step towards creating a new forum and network for women theatre practitioners around the globe (the Women's Global Theatre Forum). The goal of this website and organization is to make the work of women theatre practitioners visible to the world, now and in the future; to further and support their work through networking, strengthening links, facilitating communication and sharing practice; and to forge connections between women theatre practitioners and those working in international development. This project is structured around the creation of two new original performances. We will be collaborating on a new incarnation of Dear Children, Sincerely, by working with the six female directors who comprise Project Ariadne: Hope Azeda of Rwanda; Ruwanthie de Chickera from Sri Lanka; Frederique Lecomte from Burundi and D.R. Congo; Iman Aoun in Palestine; Dijana Milosevic in Serbia; and Susannah Tresilian, UK. Dear Children, Sincerely, has already begun with a Rwandan-Sri Lankan collaboration between Hope Azeda and Ruwanthie de Chickera. We will be crafting a new and original contribution to this on-going ambitious project, instigated by Project Ariadne, in which theatre-makers from around the globe have been invited to collect stories from elders in their communities. In turn these stories, as told to the younger generation, are then woven together into performative memory-banks, an oral cultural archive, to preserve and give voice to the hidden and personal stories behind national stories. In this collaborative project we will extend and develop in new directions this ambitious global intergenerational project. Alongside Dear Children Sincerely, we will be taking a contrasting dramaturgical approach to the issues of hidden histories, intergenerational conflict and reconciliation. Playwright and Principal Investigator, Elizabeth Kuti will be writing a new play, Cold Season in Calcutta, inspired by Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. The artists involved in this piece are: Trilby James (director, UK) and the Anglo-Indian actors, Shelley King; Shanaya Rafaat; Umar Pasha; also Sean O'Callaghan; Madhyama Segal (dancer, India); Kiran Segal (Choreographer, India); and musicians Daniel Dhondy and Hassan Mohyeddin. This creative re-imagining of The Winter's Tale will be informed by collaboration with these international performers, and also by historical theatre research, and interviews with the Bengali community in the UK. Transposing key elements of The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare's intertwining of Bohemia-Sicily; the sixteen-year Time gap; the theme of violence against women and the younger generation's "healing" of the older generation), Cold Season in Calcutta will explore, through the lens of gender, interlocking themes of the Anglo-Indian relationship; the legacy of empire; the diaspora, gender and intergenerational struggle. Through comparing the work of women theatre makers across cultures and national borders, this project will uncover new insights into the way women theatre makers across the world are re-telling personal and national stories, in the context of turbulent political landscapes.

COVID-19 threatens the performing arts; closures of theatres and outlawing of public gatherings have proven financially devastating to the industry across the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. The pandemic has sparked a wide range of industry-led strategies designed to alleviate financial consequences and improve audience capture amidst social distancing. COVID-19 has affected all levels of the sector but poses an existential threat to freelancers--Independent Arts Workers (IAWs)--who make up 60% of industry workforce in the UK (EU Labour Force Survey 2017). The crisis has put a spotlight on the vulnerable working conditions, economic sustainability, mental wellbeing, and community support networks of IAWs. IAWs are often overlooked by the industry and researchers, however it is their very precarity that makes them pioneers of adaptability responsible for key innovation within the sector. IAWs may prove essential for the industry's regrowth post-COVID-19. An investigation is necessary into the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs and the wide-ranging creative solutions developing within the industry to overcome them. There has been increasing pressure to gather 'robust, real-time data' to investigate the financial, cultural, and social potential long-term consequences of COVID-19 on the UK theatre industry. The impact of the pandemic on IAWs is particularly complex and wide-ranging. A TRG Arts survey stated that 60% of IAWs predict their income will 'more than halve in 2020' while 50% have had 100% of their work cancelled. Industry researchers from TRG Arts and Theatres Trust have launched investigations examining the financial impact of COVID-19 on commercial venues and National Portfolio Organisations, but there has been insufficient research into the consequences for IAWs (eg. actors, directors, producers, writers, theatre makers, technicians) and the smaller SMEs beyond income loss and project cancellation data. In May 2020, Vicky Featherstone of the Royal Court Theatre, stated the importance of support for the 'massive freelance and self-employed workforce' she believed has been 'taken for granted' by the industry. Our study fills this gap by capturing and analysing not only the economic impact, but the social and cultural transformations caused by COVID-19 by and for IAWs. We will compare regional responses across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as variations across racial and socio-economic groups. Our aims are to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs, identify inequalities in the sector, investigate changes in the type of work produced post-COVID-19, and help develop strategies for how the sector can move forward from this crisis. We will investigate connections between the financial consequences of COVID-19 and creative strategies for industry survival including social support networks, communication initiatives between arts venues and IAWs, and the development of mixed-media work in the wake of the pandemic. Our study scrutinizes the economic, cultural, and social impact of COVID-19 on IAWs and the organisations that serve them with the aim of informing strategies for sector recovery.