Unearthing new voices at Live Theatre
The annual festival of fresh writing returns to Newcastle offering a valuable platform for new work, first-time performances and collaboration opportunities
Live Theatre’s Unearthed Festival returns tonight (June 30) with a distinctly feminist focus, shining a spotlight on female, non-binary and trans voices as part of a packed celebration of new writing and emerging talent.
Kicking off with Mother? a new play about the realities of motherhood from Rachel Stockdale the annual festival will once again transform the Newcastle theatre into a buzzing hub for fresh ideas, work in progress and first-time performances with a programme of shows, readings, scratch nights, socials and masterclasses designed to support the next generation of theatre makers.
This year’s edition, which runs until July 11, sits within a wider Live Theatre season framed by powerful feminist voices, including the recent run of Shelagh Stephenson’s Astell and Woolf and Alison Carr’s All At Sea, which will premiere in the autumn.
In a blog accompanying the festival launch, John Dawson, Live’s artistic development producer writes: “These works remind us that the stage can be a place of resistance and reclamation. They ask who gets to speak, who gets to be remembered, and who gets to imagine themselves at the centre of the story.”
That ethos runs through Unearthed’s 2026 programme which offers comedy, cabaret, experimental theatre and musical work in development.
“If we do not protect new writing now, we do not simply lose plays. We lose future classics. We lose writers before they have had the chance to become themselves.”
John Dawson, artistic development producer, Live Theatre
Highlights include The Awakening by Nicola Mantalios and Kerris Gibson (July 3), Lasses X The Girlie Show - a knowingly chaotic cabaret mash up from Rosy Cheek Productions and The Girlie Show Comedy (July 4) and Juliet’s Confession: A Draft of Immortality (July 8) an experimental solo work reimagining one of literature’s most iconic female characters from an unexpected perspective.
The closing weekend brings an eclectic double bill, with Medieval Babes is billed as a riotous blend of cabaret, drag, poetry, comedy, sketch and song, while Alicia Meehan’s What Adult Am I? promises something more surreal and episodic, created in collaboration with Rose Lewis, Emma Crawley-Bennett and Becky Glendenning-Laycock. Both performances will be happening on July 11.
Unearthed is also about what happens before a show is “finished” - and this is supported by rehearsed readings including Rosie Bowden’s new musical REVERB, Chess Tomlinson’s Mam, Me, Mia and Beth Mullen’s Ulcers, while returning favourites such as A Play For Breakfast (July 3 and 10) and Scratch Night (July 9) will give artists the chance to test ideas in front of supportive audiences.
Speaking of the importance of the motivations which underpin Unearthed, John says: “New writing must be rooted everywhere, in the places, voices and communities that shape us. The North East has always been a place of fierce voices, deep feeling and extraordinary imagination. Its artists carry the grit, warmth, humour and truth of this region through our own spaces and beyond.
“Our responsibility is to make sure those voices are not only nurtured, but heard, celebrated and carried forward. Provided a platform, a provocation and a declaration that artists working here deserve space to thrive and to shape the national conversation.
“The stakes are higher than ever. Our stories are not too local. Our accents are not obstacles. Our communities are not niche. If we do not protect new writing now, we do not simply lose plays. We lose future classics. We lose writers before they have had the chance to become themselves.
“Unearthed Festival is a promise. To keep making space. To keep opening doors. To keep insisting that theatre belongs everywhere, that meaningful voices are everywhere, and that new writing must be allowed not just to survive, but to thrive.”
For details of the full festival programme, visit live.org.uk