This week's news from the Coliseum...

Our Open Day on Saturday was a huge success (pics in blog below) – if you came along I do hope you made the most of all the exciting activities we put on throughout the day. Hopefully the day will have given you all a real insight into all that goes into to putting a production on the stage at the Coliseum.

As we draw to the end of our spring summer season we have had quite a few events in our small studio space. One of these was by our weekly performance group ActingLAB who have been working with previously unperformed scripts and produced them for the first time last night. The group work incredibly hard over three terms to prepare for this final performance. I managed to grab a seat last night to see the emerging performers showcase the plays and it’s great to see how well the group work together put on a an engaging production.

Elsewhere, Carly and Amy from our education and outreach department have been working with an organisation called Nacro, a crime reduction charity. They arranged for a group of young people accessing Nacro services to take part in a project at the Coliseum over the last few weeks. Many of the participants are homeless or accessing temporary accommodation. The project aims to encourage the individuals to learn from each other and their different experiences, supporting them to develop communication, problem-solving and team-working skills.

They have been working with image theatre which is a really simple way to present ideas by striking a pose that represents a certain feeling or character. It works especially well with participants who might be nervous about expressing themselves. Using this technique the group challenged stereotypes of young homeless people and authority figures and from that the project took off. They developed comedy sketches and writing rap music about their experiences of homelessness and presented a mini performance piece on that theme at the Open Day last Saturday.

This weekend is the Mela; live music, street dancing, fun fair and puppets - should be a great day out! The Coliseum team will be there ready to tell you all about our big move and the new season. They’ll be joined by members of Rifco Arts who are bringing the glittering Britain’s Got Bangra to the theatre in November.

Another date for the diary this weekend; Saturday is the last performance of A Fine Bright Day Today and the last Coliseum production of the season. Make sure you catch it before it’s too late.

See you at the theatre.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director