This blog is dedicated to providing updates and insights into Daring Pairings 3: Hampstead Theatre’s third New Writing Festival.
The previous two Daring Pairings Festivals, in 2006 and 2007, focused on events which brought together two playwrights, each with their own distinctive style, to see what could happen in a collaboration between the two. This year we are staying true to that collaborative principle but branching out by inviting not only different writers to work together, but different companies to work with Hampstead to look at new ways of making plays. The “pairings” this year are multiple – between writers but also between different organisations, and between different art forms entirely. We want to give over the building for two weeks, to become a sort of experimental ground – where new theatre is conjured on the spot; where writers are inspired to push their work further and explore all the possibilities of the live moment; and where audiences never know quite what’s in store.
Daring Pairings will involve over 40 writers and artists working together. It runs from 28th Oct to 7th Nov and features a programme of events on the main stage, and the possibility of additional surprise performances elsewhere in the building. All the events are scheduled around our main house production which forms the centrepiece of the festival: What Fatima Did, the thought-provoking new play by rising star Atiha Sen Gupta. Expect much late-night excitement as night after night the main show goes down and the Daring Pairing of that evening begins.
Details of the full programme will be announced in the coming weeks. Plus weekly news, gossip and updates on the progress of each of the projects will also be posted here. We hope to whet your appetite.
Corinne Salisbury
Associate Producer
Hampstead Theatre
