Go Live Theatre Projects
Opening up the world of theatre
Seeing and participating in theatre exposes us to different perspectives, touches our emotions, boosts confidence, unlocks creativity and teaches valuable skills. Go Live Theatre Projects works to give more children and young people the chance to experience these life-enhancing benefits. Their latest project, Playmakers, is an inclusive playwriting project for D/deaf and hard of hearing pupils.
We’re thrilled to support Playmakers with a grant of £25,000. Up to 50 primary school pupils who are D/deaf and hard of hearing will create a play and see it performed by professional actors on stage in London. The children will also attend a play in London’s West End with British Sign Language (BSL) provided so everyone can enjoy the performance.
- So far 250,000 children and young people have been on a theatre trip and/or taken part in a project with Go Live Theatre Project
- Previous evaluation showed that children taking part in Playmakers made a huge leap forward in their understanding of playwriting and in using their imagination.
- There are at least 50,000 children who are D/deaf in the UK according to the Consortium for Research into Deaf Education.
The Queens Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue by Rod Allday, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
From script to stage
Each of the three schools taking part will hold seven collaborative playwriting sessions led by one D/deaf and one hearing drama facilitator. The children will learn how to establish characters, a setting, a narrative and dialogue. A playwright will attend at least one of the playwriting sessions to understand the concept of the play and pull together the children’s ideas, keeping it as close to the original idea as possible. The finished plays will be performed by both D/deaf and hearing actors in a central London theatre to an audience including all three participating schools. After the performance there will be a Q&A session between the children and the actors.
The children who take part will learn teamwork and grow their confidence and ability in expressing ideas. As well as understanding how to create a play, participants will feel pride in their achievements and in D/deaf identity.
“Our mission is to use the power of theatre to create inspiring experiences and unlock possibilities for young people, especially those with fewer opportunities including D/deaf young people. Playmakers is our flagship primary school education programme and we have adapted it for D/deaf students. It is therefore a key part of our provision for D/deaf young people.”
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