Darke Visions is an ambitious eighteen-month festival, running from Spring 2009 to Summer 2010, celebrating the life and work of Cornwall’s foremost playwright.

The festival has come about as a grass-roots response to Nick Darke’s untimely death in 2005 and a collective ambition to stimulate and inspire audiences and artists through a celebration of his legacy.

With a festival partnership involving professional theatre and dance companies, writers, film-makers, schools, young people and whole communities, Darke Visions is set to offer audiences unprecedented access to a wealth of Nick’s work over the coming 18 months.

From young people’s productions to productions by Cornwall’s leading professional companies, from new writing to shed installations, and from male voice choirs to county-wide arts projects, Darke Visions aims to inspire, excite and engage new audiences the length and breadth of the region using the impressive body of Nick’s work as a catalyst.

Working with Nick’s widow Jane, partners and collaborators in Darke Visions already include The Works, Kernow Education Arts Partnership, Kneehigh Theatre, The Minack Theatre, Sterts Theatre, Carn to Cove, Cornwall’s Drama in Education Advisory Group and Cornwall Learning, o-region, C-Scape Dance Company, Writernet, Apples and Snakes, Sense of Place, Cornwall Youth Theatre Company and a host of teachers and individual practitioners including musician and composer Jim Carey.