Theatre News

Fuel announces tenth anniversary season

The company is staging several new commissions and has launched a fundraising campaign to support new work

Fuel has announced its tenth anniversary season, which will feature a range of new commissions and the start of a year-long collaboration with scientific research centre the UCL Ear Institute.

Established by Louise Blackwell and Kate McGrath in 2004, Fuel's stated aim was to "break the mould" of the production of new work.

"Doing new things has remained at the core of the company’s ethos in the ten years since it was started," according to press material. "For its tenth anniversary Fuel has put together a programme of work that is brought about by this governing principle."

This year will see three previously unannounced projects commissioned by Fuel reach their conclusions: Phenomenal People, a "celebration of inspiring women"; Music to Move to, which invites audiences to make films of themselves dancing and upload them online; and Ten Years From Now, housed in an ice-cream van, in which ten year-olds predict what the world will be like in ten years' time.

There will also be three world premieres – Screen Play, a night of Fuel films made by artists the company has worked with before, This Last Tempest, a Shakespearean sequel by Uninvited Guests that tours from July, and Fiction by David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, billed as "an anxious journey through the sprawling architecture of our dreams", that opens in October.

Meanwhile, artists including Clod Ensemble, Melanie Wilson, Will Adamsdale, Inua Ellams and Benji Reid will present "embryonic versions" of new work to audiences in the coming months, at venues ranging from BAC to Northern Stage.

And as part of a year-long residency with the UCL Ear Institute, Fuel will "explore new ways in which scientists and artists can work together to enhance and enrich each other’s understanding of the hearing brain."

The company has also launched a fundraising campaign to support artists during very early research and development of new ideas. Anyone can now donate £10 towards a target of £10,000 by texting 'Fuel10 £10' to 70070.

As previously announced, Fuel's anniversary season also includes The Roof by Requardt & Rosenberg (Electric Hotel), a site-specific production that opens next month as part of LIFT (see trailer below).