CumbriaFest Festival Pass – Saturday

The Saturday Festival Pass includes:

• Threads – 11-11:30am & 1-1:30pm – Outdoors (location tbc)
• Just Write workshop – 11:30am-12:45pm & 2-3:15pm* – Outdoors (location tbc)
• Ascent/Descent (rehearsed reading of selected scenes) – 3:30-4:30pm – The Studio
• Panel: Borrowed Voices – 4:30-5:30pm – The Studio
• Panel: Insights of a Script reader – 5:45-6:45pm – The Mezzanine Gallery
• Inciting Incidents Scratch Night – 7-8:30pm – The Studio
• Breakages – 9:30-10pm – The Studio

*choose which performance/workshop you are attending after booking your Festival Pass

Threads
Written and performed by Ursula Leveaux

Threads explores the way music can be woven through a life, using personal experience, a bassoon and a loop pedal. It is a story about living and learning, unexpected paths and places, and about finding your way through.

Just Write workshop
with Julie Carter

A writing workshop led by award-winning writer Julie Carter focusing on how the practice of writing can enrich our lives. This workshop is for everyone, from people new to writing creatively to experienced writers in any genre. In a friendly, supportive atmosphere, you will not be expected to share your writing unless you are keen to do so. We will spend some time outside focusing on our experience as embodied living beings in an amazing habitat. Whether you have never put words on a page creatively or if you are a seasoned writer, this workshop will be a chance to deepen connections between the inner and outer.

Ascent/Descent (working title) (rehearsed reading of selected scenes)
by Lexie Ward

A work in progress, sharing a brand new verbatim play about the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team. Using their own words, those of the people they’ve rescued and the community they are grounded in, this is a story about what draws people to the mountains. From resuscitating runners to helicopter heroics, wrangling sheep to political wrangling, the lives and stories affected by KMR across the years stretch far and wide. Ascent/Descent is an eye-opening, grounded and humorous look at the world of Mountain Rescue, and the ordinary folk who make up the extraordinary team here in Cumbria.

Panel: Borrowed Voices: Ethics and Process in Verbatim Theatre
Verbatim Theatre draws directly from the words of real people—but what responsibilities come with using someone else’s voice on stage? This panel explores the ethical and artistic questions at the heart of verbatim practice: How are interviews conducted, selected, and shaped? What does it mean to edit, arrange, or reframe real speech? And where does the writer sit in a process that claims authenticity? Join us as we delve into the craft and care involved in transforming lived experience into performance.

Panel: Insights of a Script reader
Ever wondered what makes a script sing, or sink?

Join us for a behind-the-scenes dive into the mind of a professional script reader. Discover what catches the eye, what raises red flags, and how stories are sifted, shaped, and sometimes shelved.

Inciting Incidents Scratch Night
Join us for the Inciting Incidents Scratch Night, an evening of bold beginnings and fresh voices. Five local writers share the opening scenes of brand-new plays, each ignited by a moment of change, tension, or revelation. These are stories in motion, still taking shape, and your presence helps the writers decide where they go next. Come and support local work in development and be part of the conversation as new narratives find their feet. With new work by Sophia Atcha, Lekhani Chirwa, Karen Featherstone, Grace Kirkby and Hannah Stratton.

Breakages
Written and performed by Christine Entwisle, directed by Teresa Brayshaw

Award-winning writer and performer Christine Entwisle returns to TBTL with Breakages, a darkly comic short play about all the things we have broken in our lives, from hearts to fine china.