The document provides details on Lucy Martin's regional identity brief project that aims to explore musical theatre and arts representation in the region for young people ages 16-25. The client, Sunderland Culture, seeks to encourage expression of regional identity. Martin will create content reflecting on cultural identity and expression by showcasing examples of musical theatre in local communities through interviews, theatres, and musical groups in the North East to engage the target audience.

1. REGIONAL
IDENTITY BRIEF
Lucy Martin

2. My Idea
■ Upon first reading the pitch, I was immediately made to think Who am I? And what it is
that makes me, me, within my community.With this project, I want to explore Musical
Theatre and the arts and how these are represented and make themselves known in
the region. I want to cover questions such as:
■ What does the region offer for those in the arts?
■ Has the region and its’ facilities had an impact on theatre?
■ Are the arts and theatre represented in the right way?
■ What is it like being involved in this community in this region?

3. The Client
■ The client for this brief, is Sunderland Culture, who aim to engage young people and
encourage them to express their own regional identity, whichever way this may be.
■ Sunderland Culture was formed in 2016, in a partnership set up by Sunderland City
Council.The organisation wants to unite “Sunderland's most important cultural assets
and activities”.
■ Their mission is to improve lives for those who live in Sunderland, through culture.
■ Sunderland Culture has the investment of 3 main funders: Sunderland City Council ,
University of Sunderland and Music,Arts & CultureTrust.
■ As this organisation was formed in hopes of encouraging people to express their own
regional identity, I hope to create content that will make the audience reflect on their
own identity and how they express themselves within their culture.

4. Target Audience
■ The given target audience for this project is young people aged 16-25
■ According to the LG Inform website and Office for National Statistics, as of 2020 there
were just under 6 million aged in this category living in England.As this is such a key
age group, especially with this target audience being the ones who mostly use social
media, it is extremely important to make this project applicable to them.
■ Not only does this age category include teenagers, it also includes young adults, which
further proves the need for it to be interactive and to serve a purpose.

5. Appealing to the audience
■ I aim to appeal to the audience through showing real life examples of MusicalTheatre
in various communities across the North East.The arts are seen everywhere; Netflix,
television adverts etc. And through pinpointing specifically how these are represented
in our areas, it will show how amazing it is that such a universal thing is so greatly well
known here.
■ To include:
■ Local theatres
■ Local musical groups
■ Interviews from people within the North East

6. Encoding messages
■ To encode a message means to insert a secret message that will be decoded by the
audience
■ I plan to do this by keeping locations, fonts, colours etc. Bright and positive, to
hopefully portray that what is being shown should be celebrated and appreciated.
■ By encoding messages, the audience feels heard and seen, like they can relate. By
including intertextuality that will only be picked up by certain people, hopefully this
will bring a sense of being heard and seen.

7. Potentialities
■ Locations:
■ Sunderland empire
■ Newcastle theatre
royal
■ SouthTyneside
academy of musical
performance
■ The customs house
■ Equipment
■ Camera
■ Tripod
■ Microphone
■ Lighting

8. Examples & Inspiration
■ https://youtu.be/GIR4RZpxwX0Although I will not be promoting anything like in this
video, I really admired how it was a mix of interviews and showcasing exactly what
they do through their course. I took inspiration from this as the audience will get an
insight into musical theatre, whether they are interested in it or not.
■ https://youtu.be/3bY-ncTLKCk This video does not necessarily cover my topic of
choice, yet I liked how it included many different directors and leaders across
many areas, who promoted their communities, and all spoke about it so positively.
This will hopefully be beneficial to include in my own project as it engages the
audience, allowing them to think about the positives of their own community.
■

9. Why I chose this
■ I chose to do my project on this as its something that makes me feel like me within our
area. I wanted to do it in the form of a video / documentary to fully showcase the
representation of it throughout local areas. It also makes the most sense to include
videos, audio and interviews of all things theatre and the people who do it.