Launchpad 2025 Frequently Asked Questions.
What are the key dates & deadlines for the programme?
- Applications close: Sunday 11 May 2025, 5pm
- Interviews: Friday 16 May 2025 – Friday 23 May 2025, by arrangement
- Artist welcome session: Wednesday 4 June 2025
- Programme start date: Tuesday 10 June 2025
- Showcase date: TBC
- Fee: £1,200 for their participation on the development programme, plus an additional £1,075 for the rehearsals and showcase
Who can apply?
CRIPtic’s work is for disabled people – by which we mean “people who face disableist [including audist or neurotypist] barriers”, or “people who identify themselves as deaf or disabled – or are identified by others as deaf or disabled in society”. To find out more about what we mean by this, please look at our website.
We are taking solo artists, or groups of up to three people. If you are a group, at least two of the members must be disabled, and it must be disabled-led.
Performers and groups must be UK-based. Groups must be disabled-led; as long as 50% of UK-based group members are disabled, the group is eligible.
The performance programme is designed around live performances, but this could include digital performances, as long as you have the equipment, experience, and technical ability to deliver broadcast-quality live footage, as we do not have the scope within our team to lead on this.
In 2025, we are intensifying our efforts to support disabled individuals who continue to face significant barriers in accessing opportunities in both mainstream and disability arts. We aim to dismantle disabling barriers and enable people to do their best work, instead of constantly fighting to have their needs met. We want to direct part of our organisational focus towards working with people who need the expertise and resources we have, and who face particular barriers in finding opportunities that meet their access needs.
Part of the expertise we have at CRIPtic includes:
- Sourcing venues with comprehensive wheelchair access, including facilities like Changing Places toilets.
- Working with people who use 1:1 support.
- Implementing robust infectious disease and illness protocols.
- Designing remote-only or remote-priority work environments.
- Providing BSL interpretation across the board in our work.
We are also very keen to reach out and be in contact with disabled creatives who are underrepresented in the arts; from the global majority and other disabled creatives who face barriers (including racist, classist, and ageist ones) or are underrepresented in the mainstream arts sector for other reasons.
What work are you looking for?
We are looking for pieces that fit the brief, and have been created by a wide and diverse range of disabled people. We’re looking for ideas that feel new, fresh, and original. We want things that bring a celebratory energy to this crip party – whether a quiet celebration of love and life, or a joyful burst of sound, colour, and light. We’re interested in pieces that bring something out that we’ve not encountered previously, or that illuminate a new facet of something we’ve seen before. We’re also very interested to receive pieces from a wide variety of artforms, and are excited by pitches for music, dance, comedy, and visual arts performances, as well as pitches for theatre, poetry, monologue.
We want work that we can understand and market. This means that your pitch needs to be clear – we need to understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it, what you want the audience to take from your performance. We also want to understand why it’s you writing and performing this work, and what it means to you to do so.
We also want to know that it’s feasible and that you would be able to do it. This means it needs to fit with your previous experience. Launchpad is there to give people a boost to the next stage of their careers – so you don’t need to have performed at this level previously – but you do need the experience to prove that you can do it.
We’re looking for work to stage together and theatrically. This means it could be in any genre or artform, as long as you can demonstrate how it would be staged live as part of the show.
How complete should the work be when I apply?
We are looking for people who have draft scripts (if a theatre performance), or an early stage performance plan. During the 6 months of the programme, you will be paid to attend both creative and access-focused workshops, which are a mandatory part of your participation on the scheme. You will also work with dramaturg and director Jamie Hale both on constructing your individual piece, and also on the shifts and alterations needed to weave it into the wider performance alongside the other three acts bringing work.
This means that your piece needs to be at an early stage of development, where it can still grow and change, and where you are open to those changes being made to bring the four commissioned pieces together into a cohesive show.
It can’t be a piece you’re simultaneously working on for another project (if you are accepted for Launchpad, you will not be able to develop this show with other parties for the duration of the programme), as it needs the flexibility to be altered on Launchpad. However, it can absolutely be an idea you’d like to develop further in future!
What themes are often covered, and what feels unique?
We often receive a lot of pitches on the following topics:
- Narratives about encounters with the medical system (often discriminatory ones) and experiences of diagnosis
- What it’s like to have a particular experience (e.g. “being invisibly disabled”, “being visibly disabled”, “being neurodivergent”)
We also receive a lot of pitches that are solo shows, monologues, poetry, and story-telling, and are also very interested to receive pitches from people working in other and combined art-forms, especially music, dance, and delivery in BSL and other signed languages.
In order to take a diversity of work, we’re unlikely to commission all four works in a single artforms or on a single theme, and works on more commonly pitched themes or artforms are likely to face more competition.
We’re a group, how is the fee apportioned?
People on Launchpad are paid for their participation in a series of workshops and meetings to develop their work, and for these the payment is to the group (and will be the same per act, whether solo artists or groups). The group would be expected to nominate one member to consistently attend all of the workshops and meetings.
Because of the nature of these sessions, they should be attended by the person writing or creating the work. The meetings may need multiple or different members of the team at different times, but the development money is per act, rather than per individual.
For rehearsals and performances, the fee will be paid at the appropriate day or week rate to all group members who are needed to be present. We may only need performers, and not writers, to be present at rehearsals but will pay anyone we require to be present.
I already have a sound/set/lighting designer or director on board, can I apply?
The pieces we select will be brought together into a show by Jamie Hale, Artistic Director at CRIPtic Arts, and the sound and lighting design will be done for the show as a whole, rather than individual acts. If your show has embedded sound, you may need to provide the sound files, but we will be providing the direction and design teams for the show. People will not be able to bring a director or design team for their individual piece.
My idea involves high risk work (e.g. fire work, aerial work), can I apply?
Absolutely. If we want to take your piece forward, we may ask for an outline, training and performance history, and risk assessment at an early stage, before interview (or between interview and decision-making) to share with the venue and ensure that it can be accommodated safely.
How do you assess applications?
Launchpad exists for several overlapping reasons. Partly we want to put on a great show of exceptional work by disabled people at a world-class venue, spotlighting the art and artists. However, we also see it as an important opportunity to give people a chance to move forward in their careers. When we’re assessing applications, we will often ask ourselves questions like:
- How original is the idea? Have we seen it before?
- Is the piece at the right stage of development for us to work together on shaping it for performance?
- Can we imagine a future in which this piece can develop further after Launchpad?
- Is this piece going to be marketable to other audiences and venues in the future?
- Do the applicants have enough experience for us to be confident that they can deliver this project?
- Are the samples of work submitted of a quality and level that’s appropriate for Launchpad?
- How many opportunities have the applicants had previously, and to what extent do they need this opportunity?
- How clearly can we identify the shift that Launchpad would make in their creative practice and future career development? Are they at the right place for this opportunity to have real benefit?
- What barriers have they faced in accessing other opportunities? Are there things that Launchpad can offer (e.g. a venue with hoist-adapted toilets, and support towards funding for 1:1 support work and BSL interpreters) that they need and that wouldn’t be provided by other opportunities?
Don’t worry about neuronormative applications and what you think is “expected” in terms of spelling, grammar and structure – your application will be read by a disabled team and will be assessed on its creative or organisational merits. Just tell us about the things we’ve asked you to tell us about, in the way that works best for you.
What support is available to me when I apply?
We accept applications via Google Form, Word document, or audio or video file (in spoken English or BSL and up to 7 minutes long).
Our application process is designed to be simple, and we’re focused on the quality of the idea, not the quality of your writing.
We’re able to support applicants with transcribing answers on a 1:1 Zoom, but cannot provide or fund individualised access support for applications beyond this.
If you have any queries about this, please contact us on team@cripticarts.org to discuss.
