Hiya. How are you? 

I think everyone’s ready for a lie down in a darkened room (maybe with twinkly lights). This year. This year has been so many things and left us all a bit winded. I’ve heard from lots of people of late that they fear they no longer know how to be creative or how to do their jobs. This is a normal reaction to the current circumstances. Trust me. You are creative and brilliant. 

I have always believed that there are no ‘deserves’. Bad and good things happen whether you ‘deserve’ them or not. 2020 is certainly proof of that. When I think back, I’ll try and focus on the Zoom rooms full of faces, the moments of connection, the sharing, the waving: our community of brilliant, creative, heart-sore humans.  

So we’re nearly at the end of the year that wouldn’t end. I wanted to write and update you with where we’re at and what we’re looking forward to. We’ve been quieter now than we were earlier in the year as we’re in the midst of planning and fundraising for 2021 projects. Wishes in funding applications. There are still wee ways to connect in the pipeline. See below. 

And there’s a vaccine. Three vaccines and hundreds of millions of jabs. Jabs for everyone! Very much the light at the end of the tunnel.  In the arts, we don’t really know what happens after 31 March. We wait for funding announcements from UK Treasury, Scottish Government then Creative Scotland, to see if our venues will be able to reopen, and to see what the powers that be have planned in terms of our sector’s recovery.  I still can’t quite predict when I might be in a theatre again, and what an audience might look like in 2021. 

There’s been so much chat about resilience and recovery. For me, that’s mainly been developing a relationship with bath bombs and trying to take more care of and time for myself. That self care thing people speak about. I hope that’s what’s on the cards for us all. Whether you’ve been excluded, furloughed or freelance, there’s a lot for us all to recover from. 

Thanks for supporting IAP. 

Take care,
Mhari 

PS – Thank you to everyone who has been in touch to say thanks for the work we’ve done for Freelancers and keeping the sector connected. We will be continuing our check-ins and wanders into the new year, we hope you can join us.  

Creative Scotland Hardship Funds 

This fund is still open! For those who weren’t sure if you could apply but need financial support, just apply. Do it. If you earned a living from the arts in 2019 then this is for you. You just need to apply directly to CS now, here: 
>> Hardship Funds. #FreelancersMakeTheatreWork

Ailie Crerar

We said goodbye to our wonderful Assistant Producer Ailie Crerar yesterday. She’s off to pastures new-ish as she goes full-time with National Theatre of Scotland. Congratulations Ailie! We hope to work with you again when we can. 

Link to Newsletter: https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=641cec5677113f02f5a18ce6d&id=fd7b742416