Devised Theatre Course

From Monday 25^th April through to Wednesday 20^th July 2016, Richmond Theatre Trust collaborated with Richmond Young Carers on a hugely inspirational project.

Working with twenty two young carers, aged 10-14 years of age, our experienced professional facilitator, Francesca McInally, worked with the group on a devised piece based on the young people’s own experiences, thoughts and opinions.

The weekly workshops began with “getting to know you” sessions where the group participated in a series of drama games and exercises to make them feel comfortable working together. This also enabled the participants to create a “safe space” where opinions and ideas could be freely articulated and explored.

The second part of the process was to explore these experiences and opinions through a series of improvised exercises and devising sessions. From here, a general outline of a script was produced by the participants.

The third and final part of the creative process, involved the participants working on Forum Theatre techniques. Our facilitator Fran explored this concept of “stopping the action” and asking the audience for their thoughts and opinions of what they are seeing. Participants worked with these techniques and implemented these into a hugely successful devised theatre forum piece which was performed on the Richmond Theatre stage to an invited audience on Wednesday 20^th July.

The performance was successfully received by the invited audience. Participants mentioned that through the project they had grown in confidence, been able to “speak out more” about their experiences and found new ways of articulating their opinions, made new friends and felt that they could more easily express themselves.