ABSTRACT
This chapter describes contemporary theatre festivals as providing a very particular space and time through which to engage in a relevant and long-lasting performer training for the 21st century. It explores conduct interviews in the array of festival contexts, to talk to other participating artists, programmers and audience members about their own experiencing of time at festivals. With so many varied understandings of the role of festivals, the environment created and experienced in festival contexts can be interpreted as one that is potentially paradoxical. By encouraging programmed artists at Gateshead International Festival of Theatre not only to perform, but also to offer and participate in all the festival activities including workshops, critical feedback discussions, networking opportunities, then the desired festival community is cultivated, operating as a supportive network within which to grow and to train. Festivals are bound by time, and notions of time are intrinsic to the very make up of what constitutes a festival.
