Our third year in Residency at Edge hill
Tenderfoot are pleased to announce we are now in our third year of
artistic residency at Edge Hill University.
Our partnership began back in 2022, following the UK tour of Stop the World, We’re Getting Off as Tenderfoot moved out of Georgie’s living room and settled into the new TFHQ. As the Company in Residence, Tenderfoot work alongside Edge Hill University and the Creative Arts Department to develop our creative practice and generate cutting edge and engaging works of theatre with sustainability at it’s core.
Nestled in the Lancashire countryside, the Tenderfoot office sits on the
first floor of the busy Arts Centre building where the team can be found
squirrelling away on projects for our upcoming 2025 season.
Being based at a university means being at the heart of a community of active researchers and groundbreaking discovery, and with the Ormskirk campus winning multiple awards for its commitment to greenery and biodiversity, it’s the perfect environment for developing ecotheatre. It also places us at the centre of sustainable development networks SustainNET and LancsCAN, both of which we are proud partners of - whoconnect departments, universities, businesses, and organisations across the North West in a network of climate action. Our short play While You Wait was created for the Lancashire Community Climate Action forum held at Edge Hill University in 2023, which saw legislators and changemakers from across the region come together to make positive action plans for NetZero and sustainable development. For more on While You Wait, click here.
Working with Us
As part of our residency, Tenderfoot Theatre have the opportunity to work with students from a range of year groups and performing arts disciplines to foster a new generation of sustainable theatre-makers. Over the course of their study, students at Edge Hill will work with Tenderfoot through a series of workshops, lectures, and intensive making courses to develop a toolkit for sustainable theatre making built on the foundation of Tenderfoot’s working methods. This year’s workshop series is jam packed featuring sessions on Ecotheatre in the Community, Queer Ecology on Stage, and Writing Tomorrow to name just a few, with guest lectures and seminars delivered by Tenderfoot’s team of active researchers and ecotheatre makers. Alongside this year’s workshop series, we’ll also be hosting our third Ecotheatre Lab: an intensive, week-
long, collaborative making lab in which students work in partnership with the company to create an original piece of theatre exploring an area of sustainability that matters to them.
Our first Eco Lab in 2023 was a
celebration of Gaia and her relationship to Earth and humankind,
performed on a bed of earth and bamboo, while the 2024 Lab saw a
mysterious children’s entertainer held to account by the kids of the
apocalypse. While we never know exactly which direction the lab will
take, the work we make is high-energy, passionate, and demanding in its
pursuit of a greener future. The next Lab will be taking place in March
2025, with roles available in performing and production and the ability to
shadow the Tenderfoot team in the making of a new piece of theatre.
Are you an Edge Hill student interested in the lab? Email us at
info@tenderfoottheatre.co.uk to register your interest for March 2025.
Tenderfoot Theatre are also the proud producing partners of the Dame
Janet Suzman Playwriting Prize with the winning script developed and staged by ourselves and the Creative Arts department for a debut performance in the Spring. In 2024, we had the pleasure of producing prize-winner Michaela Hart’s play Let’s Talk – a dynamic two-hander following a mother and son trapped underground with nothing left to do but confront each other. The show was produced by Tenderfoot’s Dan Vernon and
Joseph Roberts, who are picking up the reins once more for the winning
play in 2025.
For more information on our life as resident artists, and to read our
recent interview, read the article here.
