Down To Earth

Guildford Cathedral day 1

Tuesday seemed the hottest day of the year - the sun shone on Guildford Cathedral as over 50 children from Westwood Primary and Park Mead Primary Schools arrived for a day of Down To Earth action.

Amie and Mike led the day with the first appearance of our huge CMS globe!  A wonderful visual that helped us realise the scale of the problem of climate change.  We have only one world, and if we continue to consume at the rate we are, we could need 3 planets to sustain us, not just the one we have!

The Dean of the Cathedral watched as the children performed in the afternoon.  The play was challenging and inspiring to both the cast and audience.  Many thanks to teachers and Catherine at the Cathedral who made the day a great one.

Pictures of the day here.

St Patrick's Catholic Primary, Sheffield

It was a pleasure to visit St Patrick's Catholic Primary School in Sheffield on Friday this week.  It's been a very busy week for Scene Change Theatre Company - Gloucester, then Chichester for two days, then Sheffield.

50 pupils from Y5 and Y6 showed great focus and commitment to their performance in front of the rest of the school after just 3.5 hours of work.  The children took either the role of an environmentally friendly citizen or someone who just doesn't care to make the changes needed to keep our world alive.

The conflict between these two sides grows throughout the play until the Arbitrator challenges the gang of selfish, eco-enemies to face up to the future of the planet and change.  As the children remove the black head-bands, they win their world back.

Thank you to teachers and children alike for a wonderful day.  Remember the rap you created - now go live it out!

Pictures here.

Chichester Cathedral day 2

So back to Chichester for a second day of Down To Earth action.  Six local schools took part today, nearly 100 children in total!  For the first part of the day, we worked in the Vicar's Hall - a large hall, much smaller than the cathedral, but lent itself well to our workshops.  After some intense rehearsals and 'rap writing' - the children took a lunch break and then moved into the cathedral space.

The children adapted to the new performance space really quickly, and were able to put on a stunning performance to another good size audience.  Mike, James and David led the day and were really encouraged by both teachers and pupils alike who committed to the activities throughout the day.  Special thanks too goes to Lynne and Marilyn who hosted both days and provided a wonderful link between us and the cathedral.

Pictures of day two here.

Chichester Cathedral

The first of two days in Chichester Cathedral.  105 children came through the doors on Wednesday ready for a 10am start.  Mike, James and Amie led them through the workshops to create a bright, colourful performance at 2pm.  It's amazing what you can produce in 3 hours of work with a keen group of children!

Just before their lunch break, the children worked hard to produce some lines to use in a rap as the finale to the performance and came up with some really nice rhymes!

"Don't be a caper, recycle your paper!" made me laugh, whereas two girls came up with the lines, "Find a solution to stop the pollution" - the very same words we have been using as a chorus!  They were very proud to have stumbled upon our scripted words - and their teacher too beamed with pride for her girls.

Just short of a hundred children are expected tomorrow as we return to Chichester Cathedral.

Picture of the day here.

Gloucester Cathedral

We've just finished a great day at Gloucester Cathedral - over 100 children from local schools worked together to produce another performance of Down To Earth!

Schools present today were: Horsley Primary, Avening Primary, Bream Primary and The Croft Primary school.  Even though the various coloured sweaters stayed separate at the start of the day, it was great to see children from different schools chatting together throughout the day.

Amie (one of our Scene Change Theatre Company facilitators) led the performance as the Arbitrator who demands that a representative group change their ways or have their world taken away.  As the group journey to China and a mystical museum of extinct and endangered animals, they realise that they must change the way they live or face extinction themselves.  The message is hard hitting, and the challenge clear - however, the reality of cutting back on the 'things' we want, walking instead of driving, turning down the heating and eating less meat is easy to talk about on a day like this.  Tomorrow is another day.  We hope the challenge sticks as we challenge our own way of living each day.

Many thanks to Sarah Law, Education Officer at the Cathedral for helping us throughout the day - we look forward to our return visit on 30th April.

Pictures of the day here.