Futures Festival
Applications for Futures Festival are now OPEN! Please apply here.
Applications close 10AM Oct 13th.
Each year Pleasance commits to supporting six London based theatre makers/writers for a two year residency as our Associate Artists, providing them with the transformative tools to take their work and craft to the next level. We asked them to curate a festival based around themes of their choosing. Futures Festival is the result!
Futures Festival showcases developing productions from leading independent performance makers and companies.
Futures Festival Winter 2025
Our 2025 Futures Festival themes and curators are:
The Future Is Digital presented by Worklight Theatre
A week of shows confronting the impact of AI on art, privacy, and democracy. Artists will explore themes of technology, authenticity, community, and what it means to be human in a rapidly shifting digital age.
The Future Is Fabricated presented by Maybe You Like It
A week of performance exploring invention, deception, and the art of spinning a good yarn. These works ask why we lie, what makes us believe, and who gets hurt when truth is bent, blurred, or broken.
- 2 performances and 100% of the box office revenue for the show
- Technician provided by the Pleasance
Futures Festival takes place in our Studio and each night you can expect to perform alongside the other curated shows in your given week. Shows must be a maximum of 60 minutes in length with a 30 minute shared turnaround between each show, with this in mind your show needs to be easily strikable with a compact set. While Futures Festival is a work in progress festival, shows need to have had some development ahead of making an application be this a reading, R&D or scratch.
Unfortunately our Studio space is not wheelchair accessible.
Apply here, applications close 10AM Oct 13th. Good luck!
If you have any questions about this opportunity, please get in touch on [email protected].
Futures Festival is supported by Katie Bradford Arts Trust and Behrens Foundation.