Deepening support for LGBTQ+ artists

Executive Director David Sheppeard and Creative Director Tarik Elmoutawakil founded Marlborough Productions in 2009. Since then they have led the Brighton-based company as it produces culture and arts from the LGBTQIA+ community across the country. In 2021 Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) awarded Marlborough Productions a three-year grant. It is, says David, ​“a real gamechanger for us.”

Marlborough Productions works mainly in theatre and performance, heritage events and community development. A big part of the company’s work is national network projects – like New Queers on the Block, a LGBTQIA+ artist and community development programme and network. Active since 2018, the network commissions artists working in live performance and experimental practices in Blackpool, Bradford, Brighton, Folkestone and Hastings.

David says: ​“We’re a project funded organisation, so we’ve been ricocheting from project to project. But we’ve had some longer-term funding from the Arts Council Strategic Touring Fund for New Queers on the Block, and it unlocked the idea that the work we’re doing had wider and deeper impact.”

With the idea of securing more longer-term funding, a Marlborough Productions trustee, Kaya Stanley-Money, suggested approaching PHF. Supported by a PHF Grants Manager, the company submitted an application in April 2021 and was awarded the grant just before Christmas that year.

About 70% of the grant is being used on core costs underpinning three key roles, contributing to the salaries for David and Tarik and a general manager post. The rest of the money is supporting projects. This includes artistic commissioning in the New Queers network. And Tarik is developing a peer support network for queer, transgender and intersex people of colour (QTIPOC) community organisers in the UK and Ireland. It will, he says, provide ​“peer-to-peer assistance for a community of leaders who are systemically marginalised, so that they can better support themselves and the communities they serve.”

“The New Queers on the Block touring project has been a welcome addition to the blossoming queer scene in Hastings and has been a fantastic opportunity … to support and develop new audiences for these urgent, political and radical performance works from LGBTQ+ artists,” says Katy Baird, Artistic Director, Home Live Art.