Each of our “troupes” has 5 key magic ingredients!
Good (Stage) Hands: Working with volunteer mentors is key to the success of our programmes and Theatre Troupe volunteers come from a variety of different backgrounds, including local community volunteers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, from drama, arts, social work, psychology backgrounds and more. They are key to our practice of attachment – standing alongside participants and attuning to their emotional and physical distress, through an extended practice of consistency and care.
Beautiful & safe: Each project is co-facilitated by an artist, who leads workshops and devises and produces our shows, and an-artist therapist, who offers art and craft activities to support this. They work together to produce a programme that is primarily theatrical with a high level of support built in. We do not offer arts therapy -our therapist is always an artist and arts practitioner first. But having a qualified psychotherapist on the team means we can work safely and ethically with even the most vulnerable of young people. Our therapist is on hand if a young person suddenly finds themselves in crisis, and also provides ongoing therapeutic supervision to our freelance staff and volunteers.
Everything Theatre: Theatre isn’t just for performers, which is why we don’t call ourselves a drama group. There’s lots of chances to tread the boards of course – we offer improvisation, acting skills, physical theatre and dance to those who want to do it. But theatre also includes writers, designers, directors, choreographers and those all important backstage roles. Our multi-arts approach not only allows young people to focus on what they like best, or feel comfortable with, but to move between art forms, as their confidence progresses.
The Show must go on! All our workshop programmes have a primary aim – to devise and create a theatre production. When we ask young people what their favourite parts of the workshop programme are, almost all tell us: rehearsal and performance! Performing in front of friends, families, teachers, and social workers and other fans is a crucial boost to self esteem for children who are often not celebrated for anything. To be able to show they are more than just their illness or their behavioural difficulties and for their parents to be publicly proud of them is central to our method.