“If money be the food of love, spend on Give NSDF excess of it, that surfeiting Our appetite may quicken and students fly”
NSDF Friends’ Scheme – NSDF Mature Students
How many friends did you make at the National Student Drama Festival? How many of those people would you like to see again; to work with again? At NSDF we want to take care of our old friends so that we can carry on helping our new ones. The NSDF has been providing a unique artistic and edifying experience for young practitioners since 1956. We believe there are well over 100,000 NSDF progenies out there who have been involved over the years, starting as students and often coming back as workshop leaders and professional supporters. It is amazing to think that there is barely a theatre, production company or show in the UK that doesn’t have someone from NSDF working on it.
“But, more importantly than any of the prizes or, indeed, the success of the show was the nature of the festival itself – a meeting of people from different backgrounds, with a wide range of techniques and vastly different ambitions. I had never experienced anything like it, nor felt so strongly that people shared with me a profound sense that live performance was important and valuable” (Simon Russell Beale)
If the NSDF has played has played an important part in your life you might want to consider joining the NSDF Friends’ Scheme –NSDF Mature Students. As well as contributing to debates and issues affecting the future of the festival you can track down old friends, or harass old critics, and find out what they are up to now. Your annual subscription will help the NSDF to: stage the festival each year; give bursaries to students who could not otherwise afford to take part in the festival; offer a FREE National Workshop programme across the UK; produce an annual student Edinburgh Fringe Festival New Work Competition in conjunction with The Pleasance Theatre and Spotlight; administrate our Script Library at the Tabard Theatre, London.
“Small cheer and great chequebooks makes a merry Festival”
“Something will come of Something”
Sign-up as a Mature Student and you will receive the following:
Act I – minimum donation of £25 a year
Advance News and Information Advance e-mail information via a regular e-flyer to all of our Mature Students.
Access to the Mature Students pages on the NSDF website, which will include a message board and space to post up your comments and photos from your time at the NSDF.
You will also be able to talk about what you are doing now.
Invitations to Special Events.
Access to the NSDF Script Library.
Invitation for you and a friend to the Spotlight Showcase and party for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival New Work Competition at The Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh.
Name recognition on the NSDF website.
Act II – minimum donation £100 a year
Discounted copy of Raw Talent – fifty years of the NSDF.
Advance e-mail information via a regular e-flyer to all of our Mature Students.
Access to the Mature Students pages on the NSDF website, which will include a message board and space to post up your comments and photos from your time at the NSDF. You will also be able to talk about what you are doing now.
Invitations to Special Events including the North Wall Summer Festival.
Access to the NSDF Script Library.
Invitation for you and a friend to the Spotlight Showcase and party for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival New Work Competition at The Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh.
Name recognition on the NSDF website, the NSDF programme, at the NSDF Script Library.
Invitation for you and a friend to the annual NSDF Party.
“The best bits were the workshops with Jane Howell and Mike Alfreds, and mixing it up with other students from around the country.” (Roger Michell)
“The Festival’s the thing”
Becoming a Mature Student
To become an NSDF Mature Student, just fill in THIS FORM, and return either by email or snail mail, to the NSDF office.
The NSDF is a registered charity and each year the Director and the Board of Trustees raise funds to ensure they keep helping great new theatre and artists. Not surprisingly, as with all arts organisations, this means that there are annual financial demands that need to be met. The NSDF is lucky enough to receive income from entry fees and the box office, whilst also being supported by a number of organisations including the Arts Council and the Sunday Times. However, for the NSDF to continue its unique work, further major fundraising targets have to be met every year. As a registered charity the NSDF can claim Gift Aid. If you are a UK tax-payer you can tick the Gift Aid box on the form. This means that for every pound you give, the NSDF will receive an extra 28 pence from Inland Revenue. This means that your £25 can be turned into £32, or £100 into £128 – and it doesn’t cost you a thing. You simply tick the box when you complete the form.
