MishMash Festival

Celebrating self-created work of LAMDA alumni and their contemporaries

MishMash Festival is a collection of live performances, workshops and panel discussions centring on boundary pushing artistry, self-created work and professional development. 

The weekend festival will take place from Friday 3 May – Sunday 5 May 2024. 

We’d like to thank the Backstage Trust, Philip Carne MBE and Christine Carne, Geoff and Linda Lepard, the Noël Coward Foundation, and others who wish to remain anonymous for their generous support of the festival.

Applications Closed

Submissions for MishMash 2024 have now closed. In the coming months, we'll announce the festival's full programme.

Submissions

MishMash is all about trying new things and taking risks. We are looking for original ideas for live stage performance that haven’t been written or fully realised yet. 

You might never have written anything before, you might be looking to explore a new way of making theatre, or perhaps there’s a project you want to extend. 

MishMash Festival is a sharing of works in progress. All programmed projects will have access to limited tech, and we aren’t expecting polished products! This is a celebration of seeds of ideas, and we’re excited to see where things might grow from the festival.

We are offering seed commissions and small supporting budgets to help bring your ideas to life for the festival.

Where possible LAMDA will provide limited rehearsal space. You may be required to find additional rehearsal space.

LAMDA will provide a festival production manager and technical operators. Individual companies will be required to source their own props, set decoration and sound design (as well as PRS permissions). 

You can apply for ten, twenty or forty minute slots. Find out more about each slot below.

Please fill out our simple application form. You are welcome to use text, or link through the form to any video, voice notes or images – whatever format is best for you to share your idea.

As we are asking you to tell us about an idea rather than an existing project, we are interested in potential, and why this festival is the right festival for you and your work. 

There are only three requirements for any submission to the festival:

  • The project must have a minimum of 1 LAMDA alumni attached in some capacity (writer, director, actor, designer – any capacity at all!)
  • The project must not already have been created or written in the form you’d like to share
  • The project must be suitable for live performance (this could include a reading of a TV/Film script where the project would benefit from being read out loud)

If you have any questions ahead of submitting your idea, please email [email protected]

No! If it’s just you and an idea, that’s great – if you are commissioned then you can source the remainder of your team after, and we will have a pool of creatives who we know are wanting to create a piece of work at MishMash to help you out. However, if you do have collaborators that you know you will be working with, then please put these names on your application form.

Yes! You can apply with as many ideas as you like. However, to engage as many artists as possible, we would only choose one of your proposals, so if you have one idea that you’re burning to make, then just apply with this so that we don’t make the (wrong!) decision for you. There is also a tick box on the application form to state whether you would be willing to be offered a different length of commission than the one you are applying for.

After the deadline on 15th December, over the winter break the programming team (Emily Carewe, MishMash Founder, Caroline Yu, MishMash Assistant Producer and Rebecca Lyle, LAMDA Producer) will read/listen to all submissions. Final decisions will be made in the first two weeks of January, and commissions will be offered to successful artists by the end of January 2024. We’ll announce the full programme in March, with tickets going on sale shortly thereafter! Rehearsals will take place in the Easter holidays, with MishMash 2024 taking place on the early May Bank Holiday weekend.

The artists of the successful commissions will get guidance and support from the producing team through a series of workshops. These workshops will guide you through putting your show on at MishMash, from looking at finances, budgeting and rehearsals, through to preparing your piece for a future life beyond MishMash 2024.

The slots available

Noel Coward

For more information about the Noël Coward Foundation, please visit their website.

Find out more

Read more from the 2022 festival