Tikhtak

Over By Christmas Opening in Worcester Cathedral

This Thursday 30th January our new "Play in a Day" Over By Christmas will open at Worcester Cathedral working with 100 children from local schools. The play will run throughout 2014 commemorating the Out-break of WW1 and exploring and promoting peace and reconciliation. We will also run the project on 31st January at Worecster Cathedral and then on to Gloucester Cathedral in February. 

Over by Christmas - New Play for 2014

Scene Change Arts have started booking "Over by Christmas" our KS2  play for 2014 commemorating the out break of WW1. James Manning and Myself had an afternoon last week at The Royal Festival Hall putting together how we want the workshops to look and how they will fit into the day. We were both very pleased with the end result.The play will cover some of the major events of WW1 such as  conscription, the battlefield and trenches and of course the memoriable day when war stopped for Christmas. The events are carried by a simple story line of a soldier who is killed on the battlefield. Finding himself dead he cannot accept it "How did it come to this?"  A voice calms him and helps him retrace his journey until he is able to finally accept his end. We are also excited to be using actual, poetry, letters and images from the front line which we hope will bring the whole experience home for the children. Our first booking is at Worceseter Cathedral on 30th and 31st January. If you know a primary school who might be interested then they can contact me on [email protected]

Final DREAM day 2013 at Jubilee Primary Sch, Thamesmead.

Last week Scene Change Theatre took our DREAM Project to Jubilee Primary School in Thamesmead. James Manning and myself worked with two year 6 classes to learn out Martin Luther King's iconic "I have a dream"  speech, the civil rights movement and other dreamers who have changed the world. It was a great day working together and seeing how the children visibly gained confidence and stage presence as the day went on. It didn't go unnoticed by the Year 6 Teacher who assisted us throughout the day:

"All the children joined in and were keen to take part. They all loved the acting and it really built on their self esteem. Our Children benefitted a lot from the day."

This was our last DREAM day of 2013. We will be taking DREAM to Guildford Cathedral in January 2014 before we launch our new project "Over by Christmas" to commemorate the out break of WW1.

My new "Testimonials page"

In the hope of getting more work I haved started a Testimonial Page on my own Profile work blog. Yesterday I delivered an RE day for the Barnabas in schools team on the theme of  "Who am I?" in a beautiful little primary school in Bramley, Surrey. If I say so myself not a bad start to my new page. Of course only the good ones will go up there :)

My Mum's become a Poet.

In 2006 my Mum was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and had to give up her home in Much Wenlcock, Shropshire to live in Denville Hall Care home for Actors in London. She faces many challenges day to day but poetry has become an outlet for her and she also hopes to encourage anyone else coping with disability. To see her poems click on this link.

Here is a little taster.

Ow!

Ow!

You’re treading on my toe,

Oh, Oh, Oh, No!

Where’s the rhyme? You let it go!

Now we’ll see all those busies in the bees,

Chase you up into those trees.

Get away from the garden and the fleas,

Bees don’t do all the work!

The others do! You quirk.

Lost Dreams - A site specific drama at a Community house festival

 On Sunday I found myself in north London attending a Jewish community festival; called . A big yellow house in Willesdon Green turned itself over to a theatre and concert space. In the big garden a main stage was erected and local bandsplayed throughout the day. The whole of the downstairs was converted into a Morrocan tea tent with other rooms being used for Poetry recitals and theatre. I had got together with Joel Stanley, a buddy from my Applied Drama MA, who belongs to this community house. We wanted todo a site specific drama using his bedroom. It had a great alcove and a step ladder into the attic. The idea of lost dreams came to us out of many others. Joel spoke about his own lost dreams for 10 minutes or so and I wrote down everything he said. This then made up the basis of our script. Joel played my sub-conscious and we wrestled with the idea of being able to earth our dreams. I wake up from a night mare to find Joel sitting in the alcove answering my thoughts and words. The duologue ensues that brings me to my senses that I can really earth my dreams. All this seemed a bit prophetic with all the drama happening at CMS at the moment. All in all it was a great way to celebrate being a community and reach out to the locality around.

The LIFT Living Archive Opened! - A lesson for the church

This week I attended the official opening of the Lift Living Archive at Goldsmiths college. The archive moved from Lifts offices over the summer to be housed at Goldsmiths college, who have been encouraging various groups to explore it. The archive covers the work of Lift (London International Theatre Festival) from 1981 to 2001. My own involvement in the archive has been as a researcher for about 6 months as part of my MA placement. That meant delving into boxes, reading reviews and eventually creating an on-line trail on the Lift living archive website called Foreign theatre in a foreign land. (Pic above is Al Kasaba's  "Alive from Palestine,")

Lifts work in bringing top international theatre companies who perform in non traditional settings and with a whole range of creative approaches appealed to me because I could see how the vision of Lift could be applied to the church. Just as Lift celebrate different expressions of theatre both in and outside of the building so the church needs to learn how to flex the same muscle. Read Jonny Bakers take on preaching  "Throwing a grenade into the fruit bowl" for a bit of inspiration on this.

The evening itself was done in a very creative way. There was a room full of tables with people from Lift past and present as well as representatives from the various user groups. I sat with The Magic Me contingency. Magic me is an inter-generational arts organisation which had facilitated a creative writing project called penfriends among pensioners. In the middle of the table was a box from the archive and having put on white glove's we were encourage to explore and talk about the archive. There was a mic on each table to record our conversations. It really felt like a feast of Lifts history. To round things off we were then provided with a real feast and wine to boot.  A thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring evening.

World Theatre Day

I am 3 days late on this, but I discovered from Lily my MA Applied drama colleague that on March 27th was World Theatre Day. So what you may say! Well take a look at the World Theatre Day blog and see how theatre people are using theatre to effect change in the world. Also you can see Augusto Boal's address on how human beings are Spectacular. There are two passionately contrasting comments following his speech that are worth a read. The official link to his speech is here but with no juicy comments.

English people are very nice.

This new play "English people are very nice" by Richard Bean at the national theatre is causing a stir for all the wrong reasons. I actually quite liked the sound of it and had intended it to be a valentines present for Irfana but we saw a film instead. It is set in Bethnal Green, East London and tracks the waves of immigrants into that area, FrenchHuguenots, the Irish, the Jews and the Bangladeshis. I quite liked the idea of different ethnic groupings playing one another and celebrating each otherscultures. Irish bollywood dancers and the like! However it has actually been received by some as insulting, caricatured and even racist. Take a look at these two contrasting views. One very much against the play from  The Evening Standard and perhaps surprisingly (or maybe not!) another much more supportive of the play from The Jewish community online