Lyric life

We’re delighted to welcome Liz Daramola to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre as Literary Associate (Trainee) and our first ever literary role thanks to the support of Michael Grandage and MGCfutures Bursaries.

Liz will work closely with our artistic team to develop her skills across a range of areas at the theatre. She is one of 33 recipients announced today in the fifth annual MGCfutures Bursaries which have been awarded across a range of theatrical disciplines including directing, writing, producing, designing, choreography, digital, casting and performance-makers.

Liz Daramola said: “I’m ecstatic to be a recipient of an MGCfutures Bursary and to be joining the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre as Literary Associate (Trainee). This bursary and role will afford me the time and space to learn from leading industry artists and I cannot wait to get started! Thank you MGCfutures for this opportunity and support.” 

Rachel O’Riordan, Artistic Director and CEO of the Lyric said: “We’re delighted to welcome Liz Daramola to the role of Literary Associate (Trainee) at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre thanks to the support of Michael Grandage Company and MGCfutures. In this newly created role, Liz will gain first-hand experience in the inner workings of a major producing theatre while having a real input to the Lyric’s work across our producing department, script development for productions, Studio programming, Young Lyric and all upcoming projects. Liz’s commitment and vision as a writer and producer is incredibly impressive and we’re honoured to be supporting such a bright and promising talent in the next step of her career.”

Michael Grandage said: “This year it feels more vital than ever before to support and nurture the theatre makers of the future and to create new work by offering them money, time and mentorship. I’m enormously proud of the achievements of our past bursary recipients – to witness their work and growth as artists is a wonderful part of this initiative. The charity continues to support the vast network of jobs that make up the whole theatre ecology as we believe it is only this way we can build an industry for the future. We’re grateful to the Theatre Community Fund whose generosity has enabled us to award our largest ever number of bursaries in honour of the fifth anniversary of the scheme.”

This year, in a major expansion to the bursary programme, there are thirty-three recipients: Waleed Akhtar, Tom Bellerby, Rebecca Brewer, Teresa Burns, Ghost Chan, Zhui Ning Chang, Liz Daramola, Beth Flintoff, burn/gobscure, Sam Hardie, Natalie Haslam, Kitty Hawkins, Courtenay Johnson, Eve Kann, Júlia Levai, Tom Lightbody, Rafaella Marcus, Tony Mills, Will Monks, Madelaine Moore, Laurie Motherwell, Anna Orton, Nisha Oza, Claire Rimington, Luke W. Robson, Nye Russell-Thompson, Lucía Sánchez Roldán, Amber Sinclair-Case, Freya Smith, Lexie Ward, Naomi Westerman, Christopher Worrall and Lilac Yosiphon – taking the total of MGCfutures’ bursaries awarded to over 100 in just five years.

Michael Grandage founded MGCfutures in 2013 – a charity designed to encourage and support the next generation of theatre-makers and theatregoers. The bursaries programme was launched in 2016, and reaches out across the UK to seek the very best creative talent showing a commitment to their chosen career and looking to progress to the next stage of their development.

The expansion of this year’s bursaries to celebrate their fifth anniversary has been made possible due to the generosity of the Theatre Community Fund, spearheaded by Olivia Colman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Francesca Moody which has donated £300k to MGCfutures to help support and provide bursaries for the next 3 years. When they launched the Theatre Community Fund in July 2020 in response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, they committed to provide hardship funding, and bursaries for creation and innovation. They continue to provide hardship funding through the Royal Theatrical Fund; and this donation sees them realise their aim to provide funding for bursaries.