Wakelet of some of our key resources ←

STAF’s Creative Director/CEO & Dr Amitabh Rai of the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London, talk to Prof Pascale Aebischer at Pandemic and Beyond about PLD.

Performing Leadership Differently (PLD) is about issues of racial inequality and class privilege in theatre and performance. It is a collaboration between arts workers, researchers and a cross sector steering group, informed by and relevant to those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and aiming to create a more equitable and relevant arts sector. By working together, PLD aims to directly address the lack of diverse representation at the highest levels of the arts and change it for the better.

Since 2021 we have been unpicking leadership models to celebrate different ones, enabling genuine participation and input from people who have direct experience of racism and classism. This work responds to the inadequate mechanisms currently being used to attempt to rebuild the arts following the impact of the pandemic.

Funded by UKRI - Arts and Humanities Research Council and the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

Winner of QMUL’s Impact Award for Excellence in Research.

Theatre and Entrepreneurship Residency 2024

We have partnered with HighRise Entertainment and Urban MBA to create a paid Performing Leadership Differently (PLD) residency scheme that supports a new way to engage with the theatre world; its creativity and shortcomings. Supported by Queen Mary University London’s Impact Fund.

We have created this residency to provide knowledge of the current state of the industry so that the participants can bring new eyes and new ideas to innovate for the future. We aspire to improve the participants ability to engage with the industry, focussing on longevity and sustainability but also understanding the value of community knowledge they bring to the arts. A participant can be someone with no previous experience or those looking to learn more about creative producing for communities.

Participants will spend time learning in Urban MBA’s studio about wider UK entrepreneurship, theatre producing and community engagement. The programme finishes with the participants creating a presentation to a panel of industry members about where they think the performing arts are going and how communities can be a part of that.

Presentations will be focussed on where change and entrepreneurship could improve the world of theatre for audiences, theatre creatives or communities in general. Participant’s creativity can range as broadly as from modern marketing, future uses of AI, pitfalls of current engagement methods, theatre production or novel funding methods.