Launchpad
A development and showcasing opportunity for disabled theatre makers to stage new work.
Applications for Launchpad are now closed.
Launchpad celebrates disabled artists and makers, removed from the pressures and oppressions of being defined by non-disabled people. It builds a world outside narratives of diagnosis and medicalisation. A world in which we can imagine crip pasts and crip futures, in which we can joyfully bring our whole selves, as storytellers, dancers, musicians, magicians, and more.
- Who we’re looking for
- What the programme involves
- Payment
- More information
- Apply to become a Launchpad artist
Who we’re looking for
Launchpad is a development and staging scheme for four UK-based disabled* writers/performers to further develop an existing work-in-progress piece. It culminates in a showcase in Autumn 2025/Spring 2026, where artists will stage a fully realised 20-minute excerpt of the work. We’re looking for people who have a draft script ready for development, who may have had opportunities before and are ready to step up and take your work to the next level.
We’re looking for works that celebrate what it is to be alive in the face of death, joyful in the face of emptiness, present in the face of absence, and taking up space in the face of exclusion. Performances that conjure up worlds as they were, are, or could be. Performances that are vulnerable, satirical, bold, silly, biographical, mythical: there’s no limit.
The piece can be a solo show or an ensemble piece (for up to three performers) and we’re open to applications from theatremakers and creatives and those who just want to write/devise/create.
*By disabled, we mean “all people who face disableist [including audist or neurotypist] barriers”, or “people who identify themselves as disabled and/or are identified by others as disabled in society”. To find out more about what we mean by this, please look at our website.
What the programme involves
The Launchpad cohort will take part in a programme including mentoring, development, group writer sessions, 1:1 dramaturgy, and a performance residential, with the programme culminating in a public staging.
Critical feedback sessions and workshops will take place online, with captions, rest breaks, and BSL interpretation where required, and we aim to meet other access requirements across the programme as far as possible. As an access requirement, we can also create a hybrid offering for the residential.
When staged, each piece will have approximately 20 minutes. CRIPtic Arts will direct the four pieces as a cohort. They will be directed by Jamie Hale (Artistic Director), and designed by a team of professional disabled designers tasked with building a unifying vision across the work.
Payment
Launchpad artists will receive a total of £1,200 for their participation on the development programme, and an additional £1,075 for the rehearsals and showcase in November 2025. Hotel, travel and per diems for the show rehearsals and performance will be provided by CRIPtic Arts as required.
More information
Please read our FAQs, which contain more information about the programme and what we’re looking for.
We will upload the transcript & slides from our artist Q&A Session to the FAQs page.
Apply to become a Launchpad artist
Applications are now closed.
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