Drama

Building Confidence

exploring Issues

For people with

Learning disabilities
Physical disabilities
Elderly people

Sessions usually last two hours and can be a weekly or monthly group, or a short series of workshops, depending on your requirements

I will tailor the sessions to the needs of the group.

It may be as simple as using puppets to sing songs, or narrating a text to movement or shadow puppetry.

Or can be more involved, so that the group make their own costumes and puppets and are involved in choreography and constructing the performance.

I can also run inter-generational puppetry projects, such as the project described below entitled Stories of the Elders

I currently run a weekly drama group in Lewes called VizAbility. Together we design and make our own costumes, puppets and shows and bring live shows and films to the community.

I welcome people of different abilities, we have quite a mixed group of six including me. Here is some information about what we do in this group.

Developing a shadow show together about Mary Shelley's dreams for Leweslight festival.

The photos below are from our latest piece entitled Bird's Nest.

It is based on a Chinese proverb:

'The birds of worry may fly overhead, this you cannot change, but that they build a nest in your hair,

this you can prevent.'

The group have discussed the meaning of this and it has provoked some interesting discussions.

We have so far done three performances, of this piece. One for friends, carers and family, one for a group of people who use St. Nicholas day centre and the Phoenix Centre in Lewes.

We have a board on the Pintrest website and if interested members are welcome to become administrators and post new photos and images for inspiration and reference for our projects, or just look at the board. It is entitled VizAbility Drama Group Inspiration.

We often use

dance and mime.

Design & Creation

The group is sometimes just as much about puppet, costume and set making, as it is about coming up with ideas, rehearsing and performing.

Everyone has a say in what we do. And everyone can make their own costumes and puppets, if they want to, with as little or as much help as they need.

We have now started working on our next project, a section from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream. Using UV puppets and costumes.

Stories of the Elders

This was a project which I ran together with a professional writer and my colleague Charlotte from Shadow Cabinet Puppetry.

We asked four elderly people to tell us about the story of a journey from their life. The writer (Tara Gould) then crafted a story based on what they had told us.

We invited three children to come and work with the four elders to create four short shadow puppet shows illustrating their stories. These were performed by the children and workshop leaders to the elders and the story narrated by Tara.

Chanukka Shadow Puppetry Performance

This show was created by the elderly residents of this Jewish nursing home, then put together as a performance to music by me, during the festival of Chanukka.

The puppet shown being made below was used with another puppet to introduce the shadow show.