One of the most frustrating things about trying to forge a career in theatre is the fact there is no 'milkround' to give you the opportunities to make your career work; friends in other industries can do applications en masse, knowing that the law of averages must get them a few interviews and, sooner or later, a job. In theatre, however, it is sometimes not the law of averages but the law of luck that prevails. However hard you work, and however good you are, the industry and those that run it can from the outside often appear capricious. In the face of this it is essential to remain optimistic and, crucially, proactive. Keep on going out to events seeing theatre and take advantage of networking opportunities to forge new relationships with like minded people.

Finding out about a new scheme, opportunity or resource always elicits the same response - why didn't I know about this before? The theatre industry, for all its manic marketing when it has a show to sell, is woefully bad at letting people know how to enter its doors.

Which is why Old Vic New Voices has brought together this document, covering as many of the opportunities, workshops, seminars, groups, forums, training courses and showcases as we could find. Just two restrictions limited our search: we have only included information about Greater London, and have excluded full time training courses for all disciplines, as we felt these are well enough known and marketed - on the other hand we have included some workshops and short term courses that offer a more targeted refresher or session on a particular area or subject.

This is intended to be a work in progress, and we are always interested to hear more about opportunities that we may have missed, or that spring up later. We know this may not be an exhaustive list, but it will hopefully prove useful in being a springboard, either as a starting point for further research or in providing the information to allow practitioners to go out and start forming productive relationships, and allowing them to be proactive about their careers.

As one of our associate member actors said, "getting theatre off the ground is difficult at the best of times but when you are young and unknown it is even harder to get support."

SHOWCASING YOUR WORK

Festivals offer an opportunity to small new companies to show their work in an environment where a keen and open-minded audience are likely to be on hand, eager to see exciting and fresh work and engage with the energy of the festival atmosphere. This is not to say that taking a play to a festival is likely to be financially lucrative, as most performers quickly find out, but nonetheless they are a wonderful way to do a short, relatively cheap run while being able to see lots of other work and meet other like-minded people.

The biggest and the best: the Edinburgh Fringe now boasts more than a million tickets sold annually. The range of events is immense, and anyone interested in theatre cannot fail to be impressed by this crazy three weeks in August. Dance, physical theatre, musicals, street acts, circus, comedy, music, and children's shows join straight theatre to create the greatest show on earth. Anyone interested in taking part in the Fringe should register during the preceding year in order to receive updates and advice from the Fringe office on producing their play, as well as news about networking events for both venues and companies.

www.edfringe.com

Latitude is an annual weekend festival based in Suffolk, which mixes music, comedy, literature, film and theatre. Theatre is seen as a 'warm up' for Edinburgh, and playwrights from the Royal Court, Bush, Soho, Paines Plough and Nabokov theatre companies show work to the young and artistically minded audience. To enter a submission for next year's festival, email info@festivalrepublic.com in the following format:
In the subject line: Latitude Theatre Submission 2008: COMPANY NAME
1- MySpace address or own website
2- 20 word max. description of your submission.
3- Contact details

www.latitudefestival.co.uk

High Tide is a new festival launched in 2007, featuring young actors, directors and writers. A selection of plays is performed in double bills over a weekend; every double bill features one fully-staged production and one reading, with each show being given both treatments during the festival. A company of actors and a group of writers and directors will be gathered soon for next year's festival, see the website for more information.

www.hightidefestival.org

560 events made up this year's Brighton Festival Fringe, among them music, comedy, theatre, dance, physical performance and more. Taking place every May, the festival gains links to Edinburgh through the presence of the Udderbelly, the Underbelly's unmissable giant inflatable purple cow.

www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk

Pulse Fringe Festival, located in Ipswich, describes itself as the festival for rising performance talent. Its pre-Edinburgh time slot in June makes it the ideal warm up for those planning to head up north and a great opportunity to get some good press with which to kick start an Edinburgh run.

www.wolseytheatre.co.uk/public/pages/pulse.html

Dublin Fringe Festival takes advantage of the relatively festival-free September to showcase its mix of theatre, comedy, dance and music. Over 120 shows hit the Fringe for two weeks in a city famed for its literary heritage and legendary pubs.

www.fringefest.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVALS

The New York Fringe hosts 200 companies from all over the world performing for 16 days in more than 20 venues every August. Aimed at all ages (with separate Junior and Teen categories for shows) the variety of productions incorporates theatre, dance and comedy. The Fringe office offers to give advice with visas, and has a very comprehensive (although a little off-putting) introductory pack.

www.fringenyc.org

Prague Fringe festival takes place over a week in May, and brings together experimental theatre and comedy from all over the world. Despite the multinational nature of the collection almost all of the plays are entirely or partly in English.

www.praguefringe.com

Edmonton International Fringe Festival was launched in 1982, and showcases roughly 100 performances each day, in 12 venues, 2 outdoor stages and a few busking areas. Straight theatre, musicals, comedy and children's theatre and more are all on offer.

www.fringetheatreadventures.ca/index.php/festival

FRINGE THEATRE

This offers another way to do your own show - a great way for actors, writers, producers and directors to gain experience and potentially get noticed. Fringe Theatre Network was originally set up as an organisation to unite fringe theatres and act as a unified voice on their behalf. It contains a useful list of fringe venues, although some of the information should be checked to ensure it is up-to-date.

www.fringetheatre.org.uk