Tuesday, 12 January, 2016

Stage One is delighted to announce we have awarded a Start-Up Fund Investment of £22,500 to Sarah Loader for the upcoming tour of Toast by Richard Bean with her company Snapdragon Productions. 

Sarah trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and worked for the Finborough Theatre, Complicite and Bill Kenwright prior to setting up Snapdragon in 2012.

"I heard about Stage One just the right time: I was moving from a comfortable, full time job with huge resources and contacts to a lonely desk in my flat. Stage One introduced me to a network of inspiring freelance producers who create incredible work from the ground up. Within a few months me and my producing partner - the director Eleanor Rhode - had produced three plays very quickly. Thanks to Stage One’s bursary support we were able to focus on the work full time and our contacts and confidence were growing.

Next week it will be four years since we won the bursary and I’m so proud to still be working closely with Stage One. Being awarded the Start Up Fund seems a very appropriate way to celebrate!"

Toast: Another Sunday night shift. The smell of bread baking. The industrial thump, thump, thump of the machines that never stop. The ovens are cranked up to full blast, the factory is humming, and everyone wants to be somewhere else.

But this shift is going to be different. Because when a crisis hits the factory, the men have more to lose than just their wages...  

From the writer of the international hit One Man, Two Guv’ nors, Richard Bean’s brilliantly observed drama stars the Olivier Award winning actor Matthew Kelly. After receiving huge critical acclaim in London in 2014; this funny and moving play tours to the UK’s finest playhouses for ten weeks only.

★★★★  “Packed with Bean’s gallows humour.” Evening Standard

★★★★  “The mixture of robust humour and sudden moments of tense drama proves constantly compelling.” The Guardian