Image Description - Lisette Auton in full Northern Crip  Mistress performance mode. Her costume is a cirus ring mistress red jacket, steam punk top hat with goggles, a cane in one hand a mic stand to Lisette's left.

Staging Our Futures – Creating Theatre to Transform the World 

Little Cog's Staging Our Futures programme, made possible through the Arts Council Emergency Response Fund, is to ensuring disabled artists remain visible, connected and able to practice.
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We are ambitious for disabled artists and want to create the best possible opportunities to come together, to share ideas and to learn together.

Little Cog’s role in the disabled-led and wider arts sector is as a strategic and artistic catalyst for positive change and increased opportunities for disabled people to engage in the arts as artists, participants, co-creators and audiences, additionally bring trailblazing new disabled led work to wider audiences locally, regionally, nationally and now digitally.

We work with amazing partners to develop new models of practice, specialising in disability equality ethos. As a sector leader, through Staging our Futures, we will continue to amplify our strategic voice. Partners around the country can support this by ensuring our voice is included in key discussions and decisions, ensuring that we are embedded in the cultural landscape and are a natural ‘go-to’ for disability related work. We are committed to supporting partners to improve their own work with disabled artists and offer a range of options we can contribute and share.

We actively advocate for change, speak out about disabled peoples’ exclusion, promote the richness of disabled artists work and the right of every person to be at the centre of the nation’s artistic life. To ensure we have representation and influence, we will be attending events, creating events and round table discussions. We are also producing a series of resources, blogs, vlogs and provocations.

Little Cog is thrilled to present a range of artistic commissions, and to work closely with Disconsortia on 17 further disabled artist commissions for the North East across a range of artforms.

Image Description - Little Cog Staging Our Futures, Masterclass programme graphic. A composite image of question marks, pound signs, arrows and a no entry sign, which also includes words.

Masterclasses

A programme of 12 online masterclasses for Disabled artists between August and November 2020.

​ We have created a professional development programme of Masterclasses to maintain professional connectedness, and reduce isolation, we will deliver a professional development programme of ten masterclasses for disabled artists in our region, delivered online with recordings available afterwards. 

Delivered by accomplished and experienced figures with masterclasses including directing, comedy, writing, skills for budgeting and pitching your work and equality masterclasses for the sector.

Image description - there are headshots for four female performers, clockwise from top left they are: Liz Carr, Bea Webster, Mandy Colleran and Vici Wreford-Sinnott

Funny Peculiar

A collection of four powerful, touching and often hilarious monologues giving Disabled women the voice to shout.

Written and directed by
Vici Wreford-Sinnott

Starring
Liz Carr
Mandy Colleran
Bea Webster
Vici Wreford-Sinnott

Premiering as a collection online this Autumn.

Image description - there are headshots of three female performers, from left to right they are: Lisette Auton, Miss Jacqui and Bea Webster

Brand New Commissions

We are thrilled to have commissioned 3 brilliant Disabled artists: Lisette Auton, Miss Jacqui and Bea Webster.
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They will each be making their own piece of brand new work, premiering November 2020.

We invited people to take part who  defy expectations, question the world we live in and deliver powerful performance work. We want to support vibrant and pioneering artists who make work that provokes, excites and engages audiences. So when we talk about the future - let's ensure we future-proof the work of disabled artists and the environments in which they make and share their work.