By CRIPtic Arts Artistic Director, Jamie Hale.
It’s hard to believe that CRIPtic is five years old, but when I look around it, I am filled with pride and amazement and appreciation for all the people who got us here. To celebrate that fifth birthday, I wanted to reflect a bit on where we came from, and where we’re going next.
In 2019, CRIPtic wasn’t an organisation at all – it was a two-night showcase in the Pit at the Barbican featuring work by several disabled artists, including my solo show, then titled NOT DYING. I built that event from a hospital bed, wanting to bring disabled-made work to a significant stage, and it was more of a success than I’d ever dreamed of. Two of the artists whose work we featured – the composer Lucy Hale (no relation) and the poet Jackie Hagan have since passed away, and I want to pause to remember the contributions they made to the arts.
After 2019, there was a bit of a hiatus – I had some other work that was consuming me, and began training as part of Graeae’s Ensemble in 2020. Then the pandemic hit – Ensemble shut down – and everything began to move online. I realised that disabled people needed… something during this time, and worked with the London Writers’ Centre on an online writing retreat, Experimental! and some other smaller projects, including research and artist development.
However, Caitlin and I believed that CRIPtic could be something bigger than that; it could be an organisation of its own – so we decided in 2021 that we were going to go all in on CRIPtic, set up as a CIC, and have it be a home for disabled people in the arts. Therefore, on the 18th June 2021, we became an organisation. We ran more research projects, started our organisational incubator – Incubate – and put on another show in 2021, about which an amazing documentary was made.
Since then, we’ve shared or staged about fifty pieces of work, paid hundreds of disabled people and reached thousands. We’ve won awards as an employer, a community group, an accessible arts organisation, and a creative organisation. We’ve built a staff team, going from myself to myself and Caitlin, to our current team of myself, Caitlin, Meg, Alice, Jack, Luke and Maz. We’ve grown every year, offering more and investing more in the disabled community we belong in. We’ve staged work from the Barbican to Bristol Old Vic, HOME Manchester to Glastonbury, Watford Palace Theatre to the Roundhouse, and worked on programmes from community writing workshops to breakthrough projects designed to define people’s careers. And throughout it all, we’ve remained disabled-led and access-centred, always doing our best by the artists we are lucky enough to work with.
When I look at our future, I’m excited. This year, we have Reach, Incubate, Launchpad and Breakthrough, as well as some seed-funded artists and Associate Artists. We have Embark – a new programme for emerging writers and directors who are also wheelchair users. We have our major Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican next year, starring Launchpad alumna Tatum Swithenbank, and Steph Castelete-Tyrell, who filmed our 2025 Bristol show. We love meeting, working with, and developing artists, and that strand of our work is vital, but we are also excited to explore more producing and staging some of the incredible work disabled creatives are making at present.
In the next five years I’d love us to secure regular funding – at the moment we have to reapply for all our core programmes every year, and we aren’t always immediately successful – and I’d love us to be staging more work – both from our development programmes but also from other disabled people outside those. I’d like to see more of a network of CRIPtic Alumni, and to keep connecting with more and more disabled people in the industry. But what do you want to see from us?
Before I finish, I want to thank everyone that’s supported us on our journey so far – but especially you, the people who apply to us, who trust us with your work, who come to our shows, and read our blogs, and engage with what we’re doing – because ultimately you’re the reason we’re here.
Now for the next five years!
