Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival
Working with the Burnbank Centre, our Community Drama Group devised a piece of theatre based on reality for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival in October 2013. The piece was called Life
The group performed at two different venues. Most of the cast members had never performed in front of a live audience before, but gamely rose to the challenge and enjoyed the experience immensely. The feedback from participants was exceptionally positive in terms of what they gained from doing this. Confidence was the most stated benefit of taking part by all cast members.
Performances took place at East Kilbride Arts Centre on October 8 and 9, and Govanhill Baths on October 11.
The Community Performance Group also worked on a piece of devised theatre for the festival. The production was called Rewind, and was based on the premise that if we could rewind situations in life, so that our voice was heard and listened to, the outcomes of various situations could be much more positive.
The structure used to convey this was Forum Theatre, whereby all actors are on stage equally throughout, jumping in and out of performance to tell the narrative as appropriate. They were joined onstage by Theatre Nemo Choir Group, which had learned songs that tied in with the theme.