Hey everyone,

I've decided to blog about our process and journey throughout 'A Queer Christmas' so that anyone that's interested in immersive community promenade theatre (really need to get a catchier description than this!) can follow how we're going about it. Hopefully these blogs can open up into discussions and debates on collaborations between theatre companies and community.

So, my aim is to create a promenade theatre production on Swansea High St that will celebrate queer life over the decades. I'm opening an invitation to all residents of Swansea to take part in all aspects of the production by offering free workshops over a period of 8 weeks in acting, singing, dancing, art, writing, filmmaking and food art. The workshops are open for all ages.

The reason for this is that I'm keen for Swansea community to feel an ownership of this work. It's their voices that should be heard in this production which is why I haven't written a single line of the script yet (yes, that sounds scary but it'll all come together over the next few weeks).

Now, every time I describe this process everyone instantly think "it's a community thing", "it's for local people", "it'll be lovely to give them that opportunity but the quality of the work will probably be very amateur". We have a professional, experienced team facilitating and creating this production (including professional actors) and I truly believe that the collaboration of local talent and the creative team creates something that is pretty unique.

So, part 1 of the process is recruiting the community volunteers to sign up to the workshop.

Myself, Brent (community manager) and Gareth (production manager) have done this in three stages over three weeks.

Week 1- contacting the big bodies- charities, universities, theatre companies, council. We also said an initial hello to our new neighbours on High St.

Week 2- meeting groups, societies, clubs and associations that are already existing in LGBT Swansea. We also met people that are active and connected within their communities.

Week 3- we hit the streets! Flyering around the city centre, down Wind st at night, in various nights and events on the gay scene to try and meet as many people as we can. We've also pitched to univeristy students, been to the freshers fayres, libraries, cafes and of course, Swansea market. I've also got our posters on most staff pinboards of big shops and companies in Swansea (even got into Amazon park!)

On Saturday, we'll find out how many people will come and sign up. It's so hard to have any idea of how many we'll get but the most important thing for me is that we have done our very best to make sure that everyone has been invited.

Whoever then signs up are the people that need to be there.

Let's see what happens!

Bethan.x

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Comment by Robert Hale on October 3, 2013 at 5:27

Sounds like a brilliant project Bethan. We met at a Royal Court event a number of years ago. I am a director with a background as an actor in queer theatre from 80's (Gay Sweatshop and Bloolips). Have family in Swansea so hope I can catch this this.

Wishing you a brilliant process in making the piece.

Rob

Comment by Bethan Marlow on October 3, 2013 at 4:17
You can also follow our journey on Facebook- www.facebook.com/aqchristmas

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