Congratulations to our first year students, Jon-Luke Goodman and Cai Kennedy, who have successfully applied to this year's Clive Barker Award. Clive Barker was a pioneering theatre studies scholar. He worked with Arnold Wesker and Joan Littlewood and wrote influential books such as Theatre Games. He worked at Warwick from 1976 until he retired in 1993. This award is designed to provide practical and financial support for Theatre and Performance Studies students who plan to create a piece of extra-curricular performance, with a view to submitting this work to the Edinburgh Festival or a similar public platform.

Their project is provisionally titled The Awakening of Spring and will offer a modern adaptation and de-contextualisation of the play that inspired ‘pring Awakening; challenging traditional staging and theatrical conventions with heavy elements of technology, performance art and promenade elements. Taking Frank Wedekind’s 1890 play and transposing it into a 21st Century setting, inspired by the current movement in the light of the death of Sarah Everards’s tragic death. This abstract non-linear deconstruction will also be scrutinising the media, exploring social media and how this relates to physical, domestic and sexual violence.

The students will receive up to £600 to help mount the work and will be given access to rehearsal space and technical support.

Well done Cai and Jon-Luke. We look forward to seeing how this project develops!