Grants database

Emma is Director of Prime Cut Productions in Belfast, one of Northern Ireland’s leading independent theatre companies. Established since 1992, the company has premiered over 32 critically acclaimed plays. The Breakthrough Fund supported Prime Cut to strengthen its producing relationships and its invitations to perform outside Northern Ireland. It allowed Emma to initiate and explore new artistic collaborations and aspects to her own work as a director. In additional it enabled her to devise and lead a series of artist development opportunities for emerging theatre makers in Northern Ireland.

Magdalena is Artistic Director and CEO of Hearts and Minds Limited; an arts-in-health charity, which she co-founded in 1997. The company aims to improve the experience of people in hospital, hospice, residential and respite care by using the performing arts to encourage communication, interaction and laughter. Its Clowndoctors work with children, and its Elderflowers use the performing arts to creatively engage with elderly people living with dementia across Scotland. The Breakthrough Fund allowed her to pursue a number of new avenues in the company’s work including time for creative research into the ways of interacting with people with dementia.

Gavin is Director of Eastside Projects, an artist-led space founded by Gavin and five other artist collaborators in 2008 in response to an invitation from Birmingham City University and Arts Council England. The Breakthrough Fund provided core funding to allow co-founder and artist Ruth Claxton to take on the new role of Associate Director. It also supported the development of three gallery assistant posts and an expanded exhibitions programme.

In 2010 Maria Balshaw was made Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery. The Breakthrough Fund was originally intended to support sabbatical and artistic research costs, and new curatorial approaches within the Whitworth. However, when Maria took on the directorship of Manchester Art Galleries, alongside her role at the Whitworth in 2011, the grant was rethought. It supported a collaborative exhibition shared by various galleries; building new international collaborations and relationships. The grant allowed Maria to commit her organisations to the highly ambitious We Face Forward exhibition, presented in 2012 as part of Manchester’s official Cultural Olympiad programme, bringing together the work of artists from countries across West Africa.

Matt Peacock founded Streetwise Opera in 2002. It uses music to help people make positive changes in their lives, working with people who have experienced homelessness. The Breakthrough Fund supported Matt to investigate a new artistic strategy. It allowed him time and space to research film production and distribution, and he was able to appoint an Associate Artistic Director and in-house Producer to develop plans for a project combining film and live performance.

Simon Pearce, an independent comedy producer, set up The Invisible Dot in 2009. It quickly establishing a reputation as a highly individual and original producer of new talent and creativity amongst comedians. The Breakthrough Fund supported a series of commission projects outside the scope of the established stand up ​‘one performer with a mic’ format. It also expanded the company’s capacity beyond its starting position as a one-man band renting a unit at Camden Market’s Stables.

Stewart Laing formed Glasgow-based Untitled Projects in 1998 to produce his own projects. The Breakthrough Fund allowed Stuart to dedicate himself more fully to Untitled, with the support of producing colleagues Lorna Duguid and Steve Slater until 2013, and then Louise Irwin who took over as Producer in summer 2013. Untitled has produced two major works conceived by Stewart in the three years of Breakthrough support: The Salon Project, a co-production with the Traverse Theatre since presented at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and at The Spill Festival at the Barbican in London; and Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland and Tramway, presented in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Claire Docherty is the founder of Situations, an art commissioning agency which operated from within a research context internationally. In 2009, she was directing the Situations programme as Senior Research Fellow at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol. The Breakthrough Fund supported Claire to transfer Situations out of UWE to become an independent charitable arts organisation; with the grant providing funding for a core team and programme of new projects from November 2012.

Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell are Joint Artistic Directors of the 75 seat Gate Theatre in London’s Notting Hill area. The Breakthrough Fund supported them to take forward an idea for a new platform for the Gate’s work beyond its venue called The Gate Elsewhere. This funding created new producing posts to allow the Gate team to explore the potential for new co-producing relationships, tours and platforms for Gate productions.

Helen Cole is the Artistic Director and CEO of In Between Time Productions, an international production company working with artists and audiences to create extraordinary art works and unusual experiences. The Breakthrough Fund provided core funding for set up to set up this Bristol-based company in 2009. In Between Time produces the biennial In Between Time International Festival of Performance and commissions and produces specially conceived artists’ projects and curated events.

Tom Chivers, Sam Hawkins and Marie McPartlin were co-directors of the London Word Festival. The Breakthrough Fund supported them to provide part-time salaries, contributed to programme research and development and artists’ commissions. With Breakthrough Fund support they worked together to carry out the third and fourth London Word Festivals in 2010 and 2011, growing audiences and extending the scope and ambition of the programme.

Tony Butler was Director of the Museum of East Anglian Life (MEAL). The Breakthrough Fund supported him in two key areas. Firstly, it funded a new post of Participation Officer which allowed MEAL to expand its work with volunteers. Secondly, it allowed Tony to develop the final form of the Happy Museum Project. This is a sectoral initiative to invite museums to reflect on the need for a holistic approach to wellbeing and sustainability, and to undertake commissioned projects exploring new practice.