I’m not doing this master “Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community and Drama Education)” at the Central School of Speech and Drama by myself. I’m part of an amazing group of very ambitious and extremely talented people. Over the past weeks I’ve been stunned to see each of them getting involved in very challenging projects, either here in London, Ecuador, India or Mexico.

Term 3 started a few weeks ago and this term is entirely focused on practical work we do in projects we set up ourselves or we deliver at placements. This means that before our summer “joy” of dissertation starts, we are putting all our skills and knowledge gained so far in practice.

This blog is about us, about my future network. I’m extremely proud to be part of this group of brave, attentive, innovative and talented people.

Let me share their work with you

Two classmates from the part-time year, Jayne and Ali, used their term break from teaching drama in English schools to go to Sri Lanka. Their project aimed at developing literacy through drama. They made a beautiful website called sharing voices where they – amongst others – show video’s of their work in practice. They told me they will go back next year, so definitely a website to keep in your bookmarks!

My friends from the States are involved in different interesting projects. Dear Alyssa will bring her prison experience from her company in Chicago to the Doncaster prison, where she will run a dramaproject. She won’t be alone; Lauren from North Carolina is running this project with her. Also, Alyssa has started this Webpresence course at Central, and she’s updating her presence with her personal blog called bees and cellphones.

Then there is Chelsea, allll the way from San Francisco, running a project in Kenia soon with an organization called Flying Kites. Her aim is to work for six weeks in an orphanage on including drama, music and movement into the curriculum. As mentioned before, Lauren can be found in prison this term, collaborating with Alyssa in Doncaster. Apart from that, she’s involved in an interesting placement at the Young Vic Theatre and in the rest of her time she is devising a play with young adults at the Hampstead Theatre.

The best from Utah, the wonderful Jamie, is working on self-esteem and confidence in a secondary girls school in London and she is following London Bubble’s project called Speech Bubbles in primary schools, designed for children in Keystage 1 to develop their Speaking, Listening and Attention skills through storytelling and drama. Apart from that she is running a Women’s Drama Group for women affected by substance misuse at the Outside Edge Theatre Company. She is running and co-facilitating this group on the Thursday night’s with me.

If we look at our Asian delegation, Karmun from Singapore is off to India soon. I’m not sure about her exact work there, and this is partly because I think she will have to improvise a lot on the spot. Watching her improvise and perform in the last 8 months in class convinces me that she will manage this perfectly. My other two Asian friends, Eiko and Terrence are on placements with Rainbow Theatre Group (working with children with SEN) and Graeae. In one of my previous posts you can read more about Graeae and their work.

Someone I got to know quite well from facilitating workshops together on different occasions is Sarah. She’s worked for a longer time at the Outside Edge Theatre Company and co-devised the performance “Stand Still and Look Pretty”. Now she’s back in her hometown Dublin, where several projects will find their kick off soon.

My dear friend Natascha (or actually her name is Natasha but I like to spell it the Dutch way…) headed off to Mexico D.C. this week to work in cooperation with Casa Alianza in getting street children engaged in theatre. Her work can soon be followed on her website called theatre through play. Another one for the bookmarks!

Csilla is also setting out on a long journey: she will be teaching English using drama in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Very brave if you ask me, but luckily she knows Rio de Janeiro already from previous travels.

And then there is Reka. She has traveled around the world as a clown doctor. Now she’s left for Ecuador / at the border of Colombia to work in cooperation with a local NGO to support young adult immigrants through theatre.

Staying in London are the boys from the course, Luke, Rich and Tim. Luke is developing his own theatre company called Angry Young Men, and he is bringing their production called “Lost in Mozart” to Edinburgh this summer. I will not explain anything; just watch this amazing trailer (and go see it if you can!):

Lost in Mozart

In the same area as where the script from Lost in Mozart is based, South Kilburn, Rich is devising a play with the local young adults there. This means he is in the local youth centre on a regular basis, building a group and devising/ writing a play. To gain inspiration he follows the course “Writing with communities” at Central, together with me, Kate, Madelaine and Eiko. Apart from that, he won a Student Innovation Scheme from Central to realize his project combining theatre and football.

Working on his online presence together with Alyssa is the oldest and wisest man on the course, Tim. Apart from his current journey into the world wide web, he is bringing applied theatre practices to primary and secondary schools. He will be working there as a drama teacher this term and I can tell from working with him on a research project last term that children are blessed with such an amazing teacher. Once his blog is from his web presence course is online I will link it here.

My dear friend Rose is working on the Old Vic’s new community musical called “Epidemic”. This musical is surrounding the issues of health. The Old Vic is running free Epidemic Workshops throughout London to hear different voices about health. The workshops are still running and free, if you’d like to join one check their website.

And then there are two girls I’m working with this term, Lisa and Madelaine. First Lisa. Her face makes you smile immediately. Apart from this natural glow, she’s facilitating workshops at Outside Edge, both on the Tuesday and the Thursday night. On Thursday she’s working in Kent, devising a  play called “The Sky’s The Limit”.  The Tuesday night we’ve run together so far. As mentioned before, they just finished their first play called “Stand Still and Look Pretty” and are now starting to devise “Substance: the Musical”…

Apart from that, she will run a prison project in HMYOI Feltham (young offendors), with Madelaine and myself. Because of confidentiality, I can’t share anything else about this project, apart from the fact that it will be a great success!

Also involved on a part-time basis on the course is Kati. She just finished performing her one women show called “Wash-a-bye-baby. A physical comedy about infanticide” in Camden People’s Theatre.

Last but not least is the brains/collective memory of our group: the wonderful Kate. She always knows everything about our field, which is amazing (“Ask Kate” is what we tend to say). She is following Writing with Communities (with Rich, Madelaine, Eiko and myself) and she’s involved in a very exciting placement here in London, which is still in it’s initial phase and because of confidentiality I can’t say more about it.

And what about me?

As mentioned above, I’ve been getting this Women’s Drama Group up on it’s feet (starting with 0 participants in week 1, we were with 8 women last Thursday!) and have been involved with the creation and facilitation of several workshops in different community settings, such as a Drama Workshop Facilitation course. Also, I’m going into prison soon (and hopefully leave at the end of the day ). In the meantime, I’m learning from and enjoying the course Sara Clifford is offering us about writing.

Dear MA Applied Threatre group 2010-2011, wherever you are at the moment: LOT’S OF LUCK and thank you so much for your support and all the fun times we spent together. I think we can all be very proud of us!!

Also, perhaps this is the place to thank Selina Busby, our course manager, for her continuous support over the past months.

p.s. @ all my classmates: let me know if anything is missing or not entirely right by either leaving a comment below or by sending me an email!