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Gary R
July 27th, 2010

From our foreign correspondents…

Whilst we sit here in Brum trying to predict the vagaries of the British summer, some of our colleagues are half-way around the world in Belem, Brazil, for IDEA 2010: the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association World Congress.

The IDEA Congress takes place every three years, and The Play House has been represented at all of them in recent years. Last time in Hong Kong we were successful in an Arts Council bid to mount a tour there and send the whole team out for the Congress itself.

This time representatives from 3 applied theatre companies – Deborah Hull, our Artistic & Educational Director, and Artistic Directors Andy Watson from Geese and Johnny O’Hanlon from HamFisted! – came together to participate.

Contact with the team has been a bit sporadic, but Johnny sent his impressions of Belem itself

What can be said of Belem – aside from the heat ‘cos it’s hot, damn hot…

Belem- once a rich city based on gold and rubber, but now a city of contrasts – beautiful buildings butt up against rotting cement shells of buildings – richer middle class shopping malls the like of which you get the world over next to run down markets -and all the while the amazon river flows its way to the sea…

The smells of the city are pungent and human – and indeed the local population are helpful and friendly – though the crime rate is extremely high – pickpockets and muggings at gunpoint have been reported by people attending this conference…

The team don’t seem to be particularly impressed with the organisation of the conference though, with Deborah reporting it was

poorly organised and [there was] a distinct lack of rigour to much of the conference content

…a view echoed by Johnny. So a bit of a mixed bag, a real shame given that Hong Kong proved a fantastic experience for the company. Then we reported…

IDEA provided a fantastic opportunity for the whole company to take the time to both share and celebrate the considerable achievements of the company as well as to be inspired to continue to develop our collective practice into several new and exciting areas.

Part of the benefit of this type of event is meeting new people, engaging with different companies, and becoming more aware of international developments. And as well as attending Deborah has also presented a paper

 … things [have] been pretty full on during the conference… managed to have several interesting conversations/contacts and the paper went really well. 

The contradictory nature of the event is summed up well by Andy…

Ilana, a Brazilian theatre practitioner currently working in London and working as an interpreter at the IDEA Conference, succinctly summed my experience of the 10 day congress – “Brazil is a country of massive contradictions.” This goes some way to explaining my astonishment at the final, closing celebratory dinner, in which the Bahia Military Police performed the most audacious and spectacular drumming and dance performance I have ever witnessed. Serving police officers singing and dancing a range of classic Portugese songs, African drumming, Afro Brazilian caporera demonstrations, and finally encouraging the whole audience to join them in an extended and energetic Carimbo dance. If this had been presented by professional theatre and dance practitioners it would have been spectacular. The fact that it was presented by serving police officers, and according to Ilana, officers serving in a police force which is notoriously corrupt and alledgedly brutal made the whole experience that much stranger.
 
It served as a good conclusion to a congress that has been incredibly contradictory: in equal parts frustrating and rewarding; confusing and inspiring.

A bit closer to home they’ll be legacy too, as The Play House, Geese and HamFisted! will continue to meet, forming a mini Applied Theatre network. Longer term we hope this will grow and extend networking opportunities provided by the mini-network to include other applied theatre companies based in the West Midlands.

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Gary R
June 14th, 2010

Next year’s primary tours now available!

We’ve now planned all the Foundation and Primary tours for the next academic year, including some exciting new projects and the return of some old favourites.

Climb aboard!

For Early Years Just imagine… is an innovative new Early Years programme that is being developed through a partnership between The Play House and Birmingham Rep.  A series of story-making sessions are currently being conducted in Early Years settings , and the ideas generated by children in these sessions will be used to create a unique child-led story, inviting children to step into the world of the story and to imagine, play and create for themselves. Climb Aboard sees the return of Jim and his grandma Fernanda, who find the Jamaica Case full of precious things from Fernanda’s life as a girl in Jamaica. Jim and the children explore the objects as they are removed from the case and are taken on a journey back to her childhood…

Into the Garden, inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant

Key stage 1 has two popular programmes make stheir return. Fit for a King transports infants to the court of Prince Yannis, one of the unhealthiest, laziest and most unhygienic princes ever. Recruited by Yannis’ long-suffering personal chef, Cookie, the pupils must transform his lifestyle before the prince will be allowed to be crowned King Yannis. And using Oscar Wilde’s original story of The Selfish Giant as its inspiration and integrating shadow play, puppetry and storytelling, Into the Garden follows what happens when a group of children decide to ignore the ‘Keep Out’ signs the Giant has put up around his garden and show him what he’s been missing…

Thanks to the Arts Council and Birmingham City Council there are a few new programmes for Key Stage 2. Spinning a Yarn is a new and exciting programme for Years 3 & 4 that tells the story of Hans Christian Anderson’s Emperor’s New Clothes. Through an exciting blend of storytelling, participation and the hands-on exploration of textile techniques, participants explore human rights and global citizenship. Inspired by the traditional story of Jack and the Beanstalk, Bag of Beans is a new and innovative numeracy and storytelling programme for Years 3 & 4 .  The trials that Jack encounters in this tale become a frame for the children’s participation, and provide a  series of challenges and tasks which involve the children applying the principals of mathematics and logic.

All Good Things, our site-specific programme taking place at BMAG's amazing Collection Centre

Following on from our extremely well-received tour of Tapestry for 13-18s, On the Edge is an exciting new participatory performance for 9 – 11 year olds which explores the implications and consequences of extremism. Younger children have less direct experience of extremism and their ideas, opinions and awareness around this issue are generally less well formed. On the Edge will draw on stories such as William Tell, Robin Hood and The Gunpowder Plot to create an original story through which children will explore questions such as: Do the ends justify the means, who do you believe and is there ever a case for taking the law into your own hands?

Stargazing

We’re able to revisit BMAG’s amazing Collection Centre in the Spring with the return of All Good Things… The Collection Centre is a treasure trove of history and science artifacts, and we creat an exciting drama which will take children on a unique journey back in time as characters from Birmingham’s industrial and scientific past come back to tell their stories and plead their case. And rounding of our Key Stage 2 programmes will be another history tour. Stargazing transports children to a dusty loft in Florence during 1633 to wait for the great scientist and astronomer Galileo to arrive and address them.  As they wait they meet Andrea, the child of Galileo’s housekeeper, and together begin to practically explore Galileo’s theories  using the models and notes that the great man has left lying around.  Their experimentation is interrupted when they learn that Galileo has been arrested as a heretic…

You can find full details of all our tours next year if you go to theplayhouse.org.uk/languagealive

Posted in Early Years, Infant/Key stage 1, Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive! | No Comments »

Gary R
May 26th, 2010

Nearly there!

Welcome to the new website. Pardon our appearance whilst we tidy up!

We’re not quite finished yet. There’s still a few bits that don’t work quite how we want them to, and other bits we still need to add (come back next term and hopefully we’ll have some activities for the Interactive WhiteBoard too). Hopefully when we’re done we’ll have a truly interactive resource to support learning, and with fun activities for young people too.

It’s designed to grow though. Each new project will have it’s own mini-site, and we need your help too. You’ll be able to comment on activities, and help us develop by suggesting your own activites to add ours. It’s not quite working yet, but you’ll also be able to embed our activities on your own sites too.

In the mean time have a look at our current tour sites.

Our current Language Alive! tours:

  • Little Red Hen is our  Early Years programme, with lots of numeracy ideas and activities.
  • Where there’s smoke… explores the Great Fire of London with 5-7 year olds, with some great interactive activites
  • No Kidding looks at bullying with 5-7 year olds (sorry, we’ve not had time to develop a full website, but there’s a resource pack to download with lots of useful ideas)

 Also touring:

  • Tapestry is our successful tour for 13-18 year olds exploring the implications and consequences of extremism. (At present there’s a link to a temporary website, but this will be integrated into our new site soon.)

Please let us kow what you think think, either through the comment links or the contact page. Thanks!

Posted in Early Years, Infant/Key stage 1, Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
March 30th, 2010

Not so quiet…

You might have noticed it’s gone a bit quiet recently here on the blog. That’s because we’re working feverishly behind the scenes to create a new improved online experience.

About four months ago I blogged about our success with some Arts Council Digitial Content Development funding (Digital Potentials). The result of that R&D was a new bid to completely change the way we offer resources. No more pdfs hidden behind passwords. All our projects will have their own mini-websites with activities, free to access and use. Interactive resources created for each project. Routes through for teachers, young people and other clients. The ability to comment on resources, and submit your own to make the sites a real collaboration.

We’re happy to report the Arts Council shared our enthusiasm for this project, and have provided the rest of the funding we needed. We’re working with web design company Substrakt and social media consultant Pete Ashton, so over the next few months our resources will be changing, becoming more interactive, responsive and free to use. We’ve been trying out some of these ideas over at our pilot site at http://theplayhouse.schools.officelive.com, where you can find out about the layers of the rainforest, explore the history of Sarehole Mill, or listen to podcasts created by participants in The Home Children.

The plan is that over the years more and more project ‘micro-sites’ will be created to accompany our tours and projects, creating a rich resource of free-to-use activities and information.  After the initial launch the next step will be bringing online activities developed especially for Promethean and SmartBoard Interactive White Boards. We’d really like many of the activities to be suggested or submitted by teachers or students taking part in our projects.

Watch this space!

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Gary R
February 26th, 2010

The voices of the Home Children

“…we are sorry that the voices of these children were not always heard, their cries for help not always heeded. And we are sorry that it has taken so long for this important day to come and for the full and unconditional apology that is justly deserved.”

Gordon Brown has followed his Australian counterpart and issued an apology for the ‘deportation of innocents’, child migrants sent from this country to countries such as Canada and Australia as late as 1967.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8531664.stm

The Home Children is our theatre-in-education project currently touring schools that tells the story. The issue is particularly resonant to Birmingham as many of the children sent overseas came from the Middlemore homes in Birmingham, one of which (long since closed) still stands just off the Middleway. With the help of Birmingham Archive we used letters, newspaper articles, original records, testimonials, workshops and interviews to shape this participatory performance.

At the end of their experience the children create their own podcasts about The Home Children. These modern-day children’s voices can be heard, and can be found on our website set up to accompany the project:

http://theplayhouse.schools.officelive.com/TheHomeChildrenSounds.aspx

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive!, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4 | No Comments »

Deborah H
February 16th, 2010

Desperately seeking funding…

We’re often asked how we come up with our new projects, and, having just emerged from our busiest bid-writing period of the year, this seemed like a good time to reflect on that process.

I’d like to be able to say that we lock ourselves in a darkened room and let inspiration take its course but the reality is somewhat more protracted and perhaps less glamorous…

Many of our future projects, particularly our Language Alive! tours, start with small beginnings. A hurried conversation in a school staff room, a story we have enjoyed telling to our kids, a headline that has grabbed our attention or a building that we have driven past and always thought it would make a great location for a drama.

From here, the idea is fleshed out by visits to the library or museum, more conversations, some internet surfing, more staffroom chats and several cups of tea.

If the idea still has legs then it shifts up to the ‘serious contender’ category and we begin to consult in earnest, with our teachers’ group, other artists and educationalists and, where we can, children and young people. Schools get to let us know what they think about the various fledgling projects at this stage through our consultations. During this time the entire creative team at The Play House (a kingly group of 5) also come together and hold regular programme development meetings, and because we are tuned equally to the theatrical and educational potential, we pose questions about where the learning is, what kind of story we could tell and how we might tell it. 

If the idea comes through this stage, then it graduates to being ‘a serious contender desperately seeking funding’…

Here begins the process of matching funders’ criteria to the artistic and educational aspirations we might have for a new project.  If we are rewarded with a good fit, this results in myself and Gary spending days in a darkened room at a computer screen waiting for inspiration to help us through a 25 page funding bid (see, I told you it wasn’t glamorous).

A wait of anything between 6 weeks and 3 months usually ensues until we find out if our bid has been successful, which if it is, allows the real business of realising the project, to take place.  Four tea-powered weeks are then given over to playing, improvising, shaping ideas, testing strategies in schools, reflecting, changing our minds, playing some more, creating the set and costumes and filling endless sheets of paper with notes, before a new project comes to fruition ready for presentation at the teacher’s preview.  Following this and after some last minute tweaks we’re ready for schools.

The final and most important phase of a new project’s evolution is the bit where we get to ‘just add kids’ – this is where the real shaping of the work takes place.  Children’s responses in all their inventiveness, joyfulness, humanity (and occasionally strangeness) is what keeps our work continually on its toes and different every day, it is also what keeps us perpetually at the creative drawing board and is what excites many of us about the work that we do.

Occasionally, if we’re really lucky the whole process of generating ideas is kick started by being thrown a golden opportunity – a change in curriculum, a burning issue that affects children’s lives or an idea that a teacher has used with their class that has really inspired learning… If you are sitting on such a golden opportunity then please feel free to get in touch and talk to us about it. You never know, you may even get a cup of tea for your efforts!

Posted in Language Alive!, The Play House | 1 Comment »

Gemma S
January 26th, 2010

The Home Children… my journey so far

I have been a freelance Teacher/actor at The Play House for just over six years now and loved every second of it! But I have to say, it has been a particular privilege to have been given a rare opportunity to be part of such a lengthy and in depth project with all sorts of other practitioners on board.

The Home Children, with audio as a prominent feature throughout, looks at the migration of some of the poorest children from Birmingham to Canada in the early 1900s. Sir John Middlemore set up emigration homes here in Birmingham where children would be prepared for their new lives in Canada and then off they would go, leaving their old lives behind them, embarking on what were largely unpleasant experiences.

The rare opportunity, one of the things that has made this project so special so far for me, is that before even beginning our luxurious 4 week devising process we were able to develop 3 consecutive workshops that we then delivered at 5 schools over 3 weeks, confused? This is how it broke down….

Having had an initial visit to the Birmingham Archive to look at real artefacts relating to real home children experiences, myself, Simon Turner and Director Geoff Readman got to work on devising the workshops; workshop 1 looked at life in the slums of Birmingham in the early 1900s and the kinds of situations children were removed from, workshop 2 focussed on the journey from Birmingham to Canada and workshop 3 was about the home children’s’ lives in Canada.

Throughout each of the workshops we used projected images to evoke thought and discussion, audio vignettes to set context and various dramatic conventions including: hotseating, collective role, teacher in role, still images, thought tracking, conscience alley, marking out the space etc

It was just fantastic, we were able to develop great relationships with each of the classes, get a real grasp on what elements of the narrative the children most engaged with, and then tailor the next workshop based on what had come out of the previous. Just brilliant to re-visit each group 3 times, a real invested interest was had by all involved, and not to mention how valuable these sessions were in enhancing the devising of the programme…..VERY!…what a treat……

Heritage Lottery Fund

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive!, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
December 14th, 2009

I must get out more often

Last Wednesday was one of those rare occasions that I was allowed out from behind my desk and off into the real world. We’d been invited to take part in a Networking Day staged by Birmingham City Council. The event was billed as an opportunity for arts organisations to meet extended schools co-ordinators and other school representatives.

I have to confess I’m not exactly the first person to volunteer for these sorts of events. They can be a bit dull, and often attended by people who have been told to attend by their boss rather than wanting to be there. However, with another big event that day (Tapestry was being presented to Directors of Children’s Services on the other side of town), the job fell to me and Gavin, our administrator.

And I have to say I was really glad it did. I might have cursed the weight of our display boards once or twice as we lugged them into the foyer of Symphony Hall, but once we were set up it was clear it was going to be more than worth it. The attendees – extended schools to begin with, schools later on – were interested and enthusiastic. We had the opportunity to present a workshop on using drama and storytelling to support children with English as an Additional Language which drew a small but eager group. I had the chance to talk to lots of different people about our work, about what they needed, and about how we could help them.

But there was more. In what we call in our evaluation reports an ‘additional outcome’, myself and Gavin also had the chance to network with other companies. It’s so rare that we all come together in one place, showing our wares and getting chance to chat, seeing some old faces but a good array of new ones too. I’m sure more than one partnership was brokered that day.

All in all a really good way to spend an afternoon. I should really try and get out more often. 

To find out more about our extended schools work, you can have a look at Gangs & community cohesion, Holiday projects,  English as an Additional Language. Also our theatre-in-education tour Tapestry (Preventing Violent Extremism)  which has been mounted in out-of-school settings

Posted in Early Years, Extended schools, Infant/Key stage 1, Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4, The Play House | No Comments »

Cheryl S
December 2nd, 2009

Be quick, don’t waffle, and just write the darn thing….

This is my second attempt at writing a blog.  The first one, on reading it back, was too long and too relevant to that week at the beginning of November, therefore it would read as old news today.  Here I go again.

Note to self: be quick, don’t waffle, and just write the darn thing….

Here I am in the office awaiting the imminent last trip into school tomorrow with our newly devised and flawlessly written programme The Last Train, a participatory theatre-in-education piece that engages year 5 & 6 children.  I had the privilege of creating this key stage 2 programme as part of a fabulous team at The Play House;  John Flitcroft and I, who were the permanent staff involved, director Geoff Readman, writer & audio specialist Charlotte Goodwin, designers Dawn Allsopp with Emma Thompson and freelance teacher/actor Toni Midlane.

At the heart of this one and a half hour programme is the story of a 10 year old German Jewish girl Inge Gershon, from Berlin.  Prior to the beginning of the Second World War in 1938 a scheme called the Kindertransport was created to evacuate refugee children from cities across Europe. To escape the dreadful persecution at the hands of the Nazis, Inge’s family send her to a place of safety in England as part of the Kindertransport scheme.  The drama focuses on what life was like for families and particularly children at this time.  We see how the persecution or the Jewish people quickly changes a child’s life of normality to one full of fear and constraint.  Alongside Inges’ journey, the children see glimpses of a contemporary refugee who is seeking refuge in Birmingham today. 

The tour has been received incredibly well by children and teachers alike.  The themes and issues raised through the content of the drama are a useful stimulus for work around citizenship, history, religious education and PSHE.  The children after each session are bursting with a whole host of lines of enquiry from ‘What happened to Inge’? to ‘Why did Hitler hate the Jews’?  All of which can be followed up in the classroom through work with their teacher.

As the literal last train is about to leave the station, I will be sad not to be exploring the immensely stimulating material covered in this programme and will say a fond farewell to the whole host of characters I have had to portray. And what a pleasure it has been to work with Toni and her ever increasing pregnancy bump!.

I shall now look forward to a whistle stop whizz around the office doing all manner of ‘winding up before Christmas tasks’. Such as: writing a fine report for the afore mentioned The Last Train,  cleaning duties, set-auditing, attending new programme development days, eating mince pies, reading and planning for the new programme looming next term; Roll Up! Roll Up!, and washing up.  All to be completed in about 2 and a half days ‘cos I’m only a job share you know…

Happy Christmas to you all.

Cheryl Stott

p.s. New Year’s resolution number one – not to write any more blog entries unless threatened with my life.

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, Language Alive!, Secondary/Key Stage 3/4, The Play House | No Comments »

Gary R
November 26th, 2009

Safety and the cyber-world

Cyber-bullying and online child protection is in the news at the moment with some social networking sites refusing to install the “panic button” recommended by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. Opinions on this decision has been mixed, with The Guardian (Just one click to prevent child abuse) applauding Bebo’s decision to install the button, but The Times (A life online: just delete the cyber-bullies) questioning whether the button could address other issues, such as cyberbullying, and putting the emphasis squarely on the shoulders of parents.

Safety in the cyber-world is an issue for us on two different levels. Earlier this year we ran a project with a local school looking specifically at cyberbullying. The school had experienced some disturbing instances of bullying through email and texting, and with them we developed a project to look at these issues. Initial research sessions with year six pupils had shown that many of the children were acutely aware of what cyberbullying actually entailed. However, when probed further it became apparent that the children did not really distinguish between cyberbullying and the more general types of physical bullying or intimidation that may take place in school or other settings. To address this the project utilised masks and mask work as a way of ‘distancing’ participants from one another and exploring the anonymity provided by email and text messages. From this a peer education performance was created, with participants delivering to the rest of the school.

But we’re also wrestling with online safety from a different perspective. You might have seen from my earlier blog post (Digital potentials), we’re in the process of looking at our resources, and how to make them interactive and participative. For the first time the activities and resources we develop to support our programmes could be open to anyone online, rather than just teachers. This is certainly possible, but is it desirable? What sort of activity is appropriate? What sort of activity isn’t?  What can we put in place to make surfing safer for children and young people?

But there’s also another question. In The Times report above it references a survey by the Anti Bullying Alliance that said over half of children they consulted thought their parents needed to learn how to deal with it. How do we get to grips with a world where our children are more at home than many of us?

Posted in Issue-based/PSHE, Junior/Key Stage 2, The Play House | No Comments »

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