What is the Darkroom?

The Darkroom is a unique development programme for devising theatre companies. Each year a number of companies are invited to spend paid time working in a retreat/laboratory environment in collaboration with a writer.

The Darkroom invests in creative relationships rather than pieces of work and aims to give each company we work with space, time, and money to experiment, to rejuvenate, to enliven their processes and to grow creatively. 

It’s a place to play, to try out new ways of working and to interrogate old ones without having to submit a funding application or create a marketing pack before you’ve made the work.

Above all it’s a place to experiment, an opportunity to try things that you thought might never work with collaborators you never dreamt of working with – all without the demand to generate a show.

The Darkroom is a terrific idea. Time for artists to breathe, reflect and to be challenged is far too rare. The Darkroom has proved a precious resource for artists emerging out of BAC. I have seen the direct benefit of the programme to companies such as Sound & Fury both in terms of the way the artists think about their work and develop their practice.
          David Jubb – Artistic Director, Battersea Arts Centre