Vicky MacRae

This term has been an exciting one so far! 2023 has barely begun and already the Engagement team and our participants have lined up some really cool stuff for the months ahead...

Following on from a term of drama skills workshops exploring script work and devising, characterisation and improvisation skills, my 8-10 and 11-13 Youth Theatre groups are now working towards an informal showcase. This will be open to family and friends only, so they can feel prepared to perform in front of a larger audience before our summer showcase in the OneTouch Theatre. I know this won’t faze them at all as both classes love to show us what they’ve come up with!

So far, we’ve told stories of young people rising above oppression and pondered what the afterlife might look like, using this curiosity to stimulate some ideas for themes, scenes and characters. My 8-10s are currently using music to help build our story, while the 11-13s are creating short scenes to explore the question: what happens after we die?

Getting to know our participants is the best part of what we do, and working closely with them allows us to draw out their strengths, interests, and helps them to see that they always have something special to offer.

My work week is rounded off with a busy day at Central Primary School alongside Andrew. Meeting with every class on a Friday, we are spending the rest of the school year exploring the Human Rights Act. We have been using freeze frames, conscience alleys and storytelling to look at different articles, reinforcing the significance of kindness, equality and learning within each group. We have absolutely loved the energy and creativity shown by all the pupils and we can’t wait to see what their final performances will be.

This project will culminate in an expressive arts showcase in late June.

Andrew Simpkins

At the moment I am working on a project called Hear My Roar - 14 sessions where a group of Highland young people are coming together online from remote areas to write a script. They are trying to explore what mental health means to young people at the moment and are taking Greek mythology as a way to explore this.

This piece of work is going to be used by our 14-16 Youth Theatre group, who will turn the script into a performance in the summer term. We have two performances of this available, where we will be taking the performance to Aberdeen’s Light The Blue festival and also in our Youth Theatre showcase that will be performed in the OneTouch Theatre here at Eden Court. We are really excited for this unique opportunity to have a play written by and performed by young people.

All of this will take us up to the summer holidays, where the fun doesn’t end. We have loads of things that we are planning: in the first week we are one of the hosts for the Positive Stories For Negative Times festival, where we will get to showcase young people acting new scripts. I am going to be running an intensive performance group in that first week and hope to use one of the devising scripts from the festival with young people aged 14-18 to create a performance ready for the festival in that week. This is such an exciting project, that will be hard work but really rewarding.

The final thing that we will be up to is playing our usual part in Belladrum, where we will be getting a group of young people together and creating some street theatre. We’ll be wandering around and interacting with festivalgoers during the day.

As you can see, a jam-packed few months are ahead of us. Contact us if anything catches your eye that you would want to be involved in! We look forward to seeing you out and about on our adventures.