The Next Stage

Why now?

Matching Creative Energy with City Momentum

Derry-Londonderry is experiencing a historic wave of regeneration. As major capital developments reshape the physical landscape right now, we have a unique, immediate window to nurture our home-grown voices and storytellers alongside our places. By creating these pathways today, we ensure that building a world-class creative career right here becomes a natural, viable, and compelling choice.

Why here?

Unlocking Derry's Unique Creative Potential

Derry-Londonderry faces distinct economic challenges. For example, we know that 54.7%* of our children and young people live in an area of deprivation. And yet its creative potential punches way above its weight, making it an ideal place to establish stepping stones for people from different backgrounds who don't have the resources or networks needed. Over the next few years, £300 million of infrastructure investment will transform our city region. To truly thrive, this economic evolution requires a parallel investment in our human capital. Retaining our best artistic talent ensures that our economic growth is enriched by a vibrant, independent cultural sector.

* Source: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM)

Derry-Londonderry has always understood creativity as part of who it is, and The Playhouse has long been a place where that creativity is taken seriously. Where artists are not only given opportunity, but properly encouraged to grow. A building that already has the relationships, the trust, and the ambition to help artists thrive, rooted in a city that values artistic work.

What has been missing are the clear steps forward: the high-level training, the professional networks, and the day-to-day foundational support that make a creative career viable over a lifetime. The Next Stage exists to build those permanent pathways.

Derry-Londonderry has always produced artists who leave a mark.

Performers, writers, musicians and theatre-makers have taken what they felt about this place and made others feel it too. That creative spirit is part of the city’s identity, and The Playhouse has long been a place where it can be nurtured and developed.

But talent alone does not build a career.

The talent is here. The pathways forward are not.

Early investment does more than help one artist at one moment. It helps build the conditions in which a stronger, more resilient creative culture can take root and grow.

Watch the Film

Artist stories

Real stories. Real opportunity. Real progression.

These stories show what happens when emerging artists are given time, opportunity and a serious professional context in which to grow.