Company
Discover Children's Story Centre
What can you receive?
Fee
Deadline
2 September 2024
Discover Children’s Story Centre are seeking Early Years Directors to develop future storytelling session for under 5s, including one to undertake a new winter period session imminently.
About Discover
Discover is the UK’s first Story Centre for children aged 0-11 and their families, based in Stratford, rooted in the borough of Newham and resonating through east London and beyond. We are an inspirational cultural resource, providing excellent story-based play and learning experiences for all children to support and develop a love of language, literature, and storytelling. At the heart of the centre are our purpose-built Story Worlds and Story Garden which are creative play spaces designed to inspire children’s curiosity, creativity, and imagination.
Our temporary interactive exhibitions immerse families in the world of their favourite authors and illustrators, from Nadia Shireen to Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson to Dapo Adeola. We also curate a programme of high-quality story-telling events for 0-5’s and throughout the year we invite much-loved and up-and-coming authors, illustrators, poets, musicians, artists, and storytellers to run workshops and events. We work with schools, libraries, festivals and other creative partners to deliver amazing creative literacy experiences that deliver on our mission to transform lives through stories. We receive over 100,000 visitors a year at Discover and work with over 25,000 more through our growing external activities programme.
Under 5s storytelling sessions
Immersive and interactive, these 20-minute one-person performative sessions are based on well-known picture books or familiar themes. A small team of artists develop the sessions which are then delivered to a small audience of under 5s and their caregivers by our in-house storytellers (Discover Story Builders). The space is informal, with the audience sitting around the set on the floor.
What we are looking for
We are looking to connect with an Early Years Director/s with experience in children’s events or theatre to develop these shows working alongside a Designer/Maker and two Discover Story Builders. The individual/s will need to collaborate with the other artists on the overall production to help tell the story. The production must be easy to set up and pack down to accommodate other activities and it must be eye-catching and engaging.
We will be looking to engage one Early Years Director imminently for our upcoming new under 5s Christmas piece, which is currently in the process of being written and is based on a lovely children’s picture book. Development is likely to take place during September /October 2024 and installation and production to open mid-late Nov 2024.
We are also looking to connect with other Early Years Directors who would be interested in working with us throughout 2025, so even if you are not currently available this autumn but are still interested in working with us, please do contact us.
Key Dates for the upcoming session:
– Writing and Script Development (offsite by external writer) – Between August and September 2024
– Planning and development dates (onsite) – Between September – October 2024
– Install of storytelling piece – November 2024
– Performance run — from November 2024 – early January 2025
