As Action Transport grows we see increasing connections with the field of `arts development’. The majority of our projects now contain arts development aspects – touring productions fitting into and growing out of wider development projects, the encouragement of young people to express their creativity not simply, or solely, to create theatre. This arts development role is crucial to the artistic success of much of our work.
Action Transport believes in continuing to place theatre at the centre of a form of arts development which encourages people and organisations to develop their creativity, to change and enhance their lives. We have a broad and eclectic view of how we encourage this creativity; we adopt an expansive, non-traditional view of how theatre can engage with the community and below are two examples of how our arts development role has begun:
Clusters
We are increasingly working with schools in particular geographical areas. This usually involves working with a partner agency to develop a theatre ‘entitlement’ for particular groups of children and schools. Working with North Huyton New Deal, we are offering a creativity entitlement to pupils and teachers in five primary schools and at the local library. This programme will provide INSET for teachers, pre and post performance workshops for pupils, access to our young writers programme and access to performances of our core plays.We also encourage schools to work together in clusters, particularly secondary schools and their feeder primaries, in order for more children to access our productions. This involves a host school, where several performances of a play take place over a number of days, and other schools visit the host school to see the work. This can aid transition from primary to secondary school and also enables smaller schools to share costs.
Promoting Work
Action Transport works from Whitby Hall which houses a fully accessible studio theatre. We are planning a new programme which will bring the best theatre and performance work for young people from across the country to our region. Performances will take place both at Whitby Hall and throughout the region, working in partnership with other organisations.
