Projects.

Theatre for Young Audiences at Royal Holloway University of London

This course asks students to engage young people in a theatrical experience, which challenges, excites and entertains. Students work in partnership with local schools to research what captures and stimulates the imaginations of young people. The project culminates with the children coming to the university for a performance and the students writing reflective essays. This course, which gives TYA a vital presence within the drama degree, is an incubator for dissecting practice, creating new work and investigating the current climate and challenges of TYA.

Aarti Home and School

After watching Ashok Prasad’s BBC TV documentary India’s Missing Girls in 2009, I worked as a volunteer creative practitioner in the Aarti Home Orphanage and School in Kadapa, featured in the documentary.

I was asked to direct a piece of theatre with young people about the dangers of child labour and the importance of education. The children didn’t have any previous experience of learning through drama and were part of the ‘bridge school’ program which offers young people who have been out of education or working a link into formal education. The piece was then filmed and toured around local villages.

Work in schools

I set up Patchwork Theatre with Tina Strong to work with schools, hospitals and communities to make challenging, imaginative and evocative theatre with young people.

Funded 5 days a week by Creative Partnerships we built relationships with over 20 mainstream/SEN schools across the UK and worked in partnership with teachers and other artists to embed sustainable arts practice alongside the curriculum.

The work focused on the children having an understanding of what they are doing and why so that they can be independent, articulate and reflective theatre-makers.

Community Performance in Japan

This project in Mihara, Japan explored how two communities of children and adults with and without profound and multiple learning difficulties and autism can work together through community performance. The piece fused movement, evocative music and simple props to explore the issues of peace, environmental conservation and the idea that it only takes one person to create lasting change. The work was possible through the kind invitation of Kaori Nakayama from Theatre Planning Network, Japan.

There was an Old Woman by Oily Cart

A journey of sights, scents, textures and sounds in this multi-sensory Oily Cart Wonderland in the company of a live musician, and all sorts of shoes.

Following a Christmas run at the Southbank Centre in 2014, There was an old woman toured UK venues in 2015.

oilycart.org.uk/early_years/previous/