Following a decade and a half of growth and innovation Strange Town are seeking to appoint an experienced, dynamic and creative individual to Chair the board and support Strange Town in its future development.
Following a period of rapid growth and recent successful fundraising including a Creative Scotland National Lottery award, the Board feels that Strange Town is currently in an optimistic position for further exciting growth in 2024 and beyond.
Strange Town is a performing arts charity based in Leith, Edinburgh for 5-25 year olds. It was founded in 2008 and it aims to foster creativity, nurture talent and increase access to opportunities in the arts.
Annually over 300 young people in Edinburgh take part in Strange Town’s participatory drama programme. These include weekly Youth Theatre (5-18 year olds), Improv comedy, film classes and a Young Company for 18-25 year olds as well as Holiday Projects (8-18 year olds) and After School Drama outreach work in primary schools (5-12 year olds).
Since 2022 Strange Town’s Touring Company has successfully developed and toured two new plays – STORM LANTERN by Duncan Kidd and HER by Jennifer Adam. Both productions toured to Edinburgh secondary schools with well received public performances. A third touring production by award winning emerging playwright, Isla Cowan, is under commission and will tour in Autumn ’23. Funded by Thrive Edinburgh these productions aim to educate, challenge and spark debate amongst young people with topics such as;- how far would you go for your beliefs, sexual consent, gender and climate change anxiety.
Strange Town has a commitment to creating new work and has commissioned over 100 new plays by emerging writers which have been performed by our young people at some of Edinburgh’s leading venues including the Traverse Theatre and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Alongside the onstage work, Strange Town also supports broader early arts career development with over 30 opportunities offered every year to emerging directors, designers, stage managers, actors and administrators.
Strange Town also runs an actors’ agency which has helped develop the performance careers of our participants on stage, screen and radio with significant roles in productions such as Oscar and BAFTA winning The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Bad Robot), BAFTA nominated Somewhere Boy (Clerkenwell Films for Channel 4), Mayflies (Synchronicity Films), Red Rose (Eleven Film for BBC/Netflix), The Gold (Tannadice Pictures), Shetland (BBC One), Kidnapped (National Theatre of Scotland), Anna Karenina (Royal Lyceum/Bristol Old Vic), and Les Miserables (Cameron Mackintosh Prods).
If you feel that you could be the next Chair of one of Scotland’s cultural success stories and make a meaningful contribution to the lives of young people, please contact Steve Small on steve@strangetown.org.uk for a full job description.
The deadline for expressions of interest is Tuesday 6th June.
