Freelance Actor-Musician & Community Audio Walk Leader

Job Position(s): Freelance Actor-Musician & Community Audio Walk Leader

Arts Council England is hiring a Freelance Actor-Musician and Community Audio Walk Leader for Mancunianity Flows, a funded community arts project based in Hull and operating across Manchester and Salford. This role sits at the intersection of live performance and community-led audio production, with the performer contributing to workshop delivery with older residents and leading six public audio walks as the primary on-the-ground talent. It suits a theatre-trained performer with genuine community facilitation credits who is equally comfortable in rehearsal rooms and out on location guiding public audiences through site-specific audio work.

About the Role

Mancunianity Flows is an Arts Council England funded project working with older community members to create and deliver site-specific audio walk experiences across Manchester and Salford. The Freelance Actor-Musician and Community Audio Walk Leader works across both the workshop development phase and the public-facing performance delivery, functioning as facilitator, performer, and guide within a single engagement. The commitment runs to 80 hours between October and December 2026, covering rehearsal, community sessions, and all six public walk deliveries.

Key Responsibilities

• Facilitate community workshops with older residents, using acting and music to support creative participation and build material for the audio walks.
• Lead all six public audio walk performances across Manchester and Salford as the primary performer and on-location guide.
• Combine live singing and theatrical performance within the audio walk format, maintaining narrative and tonal consistency across multiple run dates.
• Collaborate with the project creative team during the development phase to shape the performance content drawn from community workshop sessions.
• Adapt facilitation and performance approaches to suit older participants, applying inclusive community theatre practice throughout the engagement.
• Manage time across a fixed 80-hour freelance schedule, balancing workshop prep, community sessions, and public performance delivery to deadline.

What You Bring

• Demonstrable credits as an actor-musician in community theatre, site-specific performance, or participatory arts production.
• Experience leading or co-facilitating workshops with older adults in a community arts or applied theatre context.
• Vocal performance ability sufficient to carry solo or ensemble material within a live, outdoor audio walk setting.
• Familiarity with community audio production or audio walk formats is a strong advantage.
• Availability to commit fully to the October to December 2026 project window across all scheduled workshop and performance dates.

Why This Role

Arts Council England funding gives this project a firm production footing, with a fixed freelance fee attached to a clearly scoped 80-hour commitment. Mancunianity Flows is a defined, deliverable project rather than an open-ended engagement, which makes the timeline and output straightforward to plan around. For performers working in community audio production and site-specific theatre, this is a credit with a named public funding body behind it.

Apply now for the Freelance Actor-Musician and Community Audio Walk Leader position with Arts Council England through the button on this page.