Well, we made it to the end of 2019. Well done everyone. While the world around us seemed to become ever more polarised and divided, we were thankful for the many moments of togetherness and beauty that live performance offered us.

Here are just a few of highlights from MAYK’s year...

For the past six months MAYK have been supporting my studies by allowing me to do a producer placement with them as part of my Creative Producing MA at the University of the West of England. When I started with them at the beginning of the year I had little experience or knowledge of producing theatre in a professional environment, let alone the unique, new and exciting work that MAYK produce. Despite this, I felt instantly welcomed, respected and trusted.

The producer of Jabberwocky Market, Caroline Pearce has organised for DAR, Darlington Assistance for Refugees, to be at the end of every showing of Now Is The Time To Say Nothing, offering tea, cakes and a chat about how to help with local refugee support in the area. It is almost the perfect blueprint for how I wanted the show to be held – come see the work, connect to a displaced artist’s story and then find out how to help refugees who are right on your doorstep.

It’s been a whomper of a year for us at MAYK. As we all swap emails and spreadsheets for mince pies and mulled wine, we thought it’d be nice to take a look back at the year