Touring Together: An Exciting New Collaboration

China Plate and Fuel have joined forces with Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Oxford Playhouse, Warwick Arts Centre, Leeds Playhouse and Brighton Dome to create a robust network of touring venues to make, present and partner on this new venture. Touring Together is being generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England. 

The project will produce and tour work that sparks a national conversation about some of the big questions of our times and will be working with exceptional artists to share new stories which shed fresh light on the world we live in today, for new and diverse audiences, with an aim to build and encourage theatre-going across the country.

As an industry, we are collectively aware of how difficult it is to produce new work at the midscale and the perceived risks surrounding it. Touring Together aims to tackle these issues through extensive audience-building programmes running throughout the year built around a programme of shows to create a strong new touring brand. Through this long-term collaboration with venues, real relationships can be built within communities across the country and long-term theatre-going habits. 

The three-year programme starts with a year of audience development with partner venues. The first show, produced by Fuel, will be presented in autumn 2026 followed by a China Plate production in autumn 2027. 

A key element of Touring Together will be evaluating the project and sharing findings as we go, exploring new ways of working and collaborating that can be shared with the industry. 

For more information, please contact Fiona Bradley (Producer, China Plate) [javascript protected email address] or Luke Holbrook (Senior Producer, Fuel) [javascript protected email address].

You can also find out more here. 

Image: Touching The Void by David Greig. Bristol Old Vic, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Royal & Derngate Northampton, and Fuel co-production. Photographer credit: Geraint Lewis.