acta’s National Festival of Community Theatre

Over four days in June, Bristol community theatre group acta is inviting some of the UK’s best community troupes to share their work and to lead workshops and in-depth discussions about the power of community theatre.

The company’s National Festival of Community Theatre aims to showcase and promote community theatre, providing a forum for discussing methods and approaches, and a space to learn more about what theatre can achieve within communities, especially with the large majority of people who don’t ordinarily access the arts.

“Bristolians know acta for the theatre we make with the people of Bristol, but we’re not alone in doing this kind of work,” explains acta’s artistic director Neil Beddow. “Community theatre is being made in cities, towns and villages all over the country. This festival is a celebration of that work, and an amazing opportunity for people to see the wide variety of work that’s produced, to talk to the companies who make it, and to understand it better.

“People find it hard to understand what makes community theatre special, and for acta there is a clear approach: it has to involve community members and professional theatre makers working together to create original theatre based on life stories and imaginations of the participants, who then perform the play they have made. These plays often reflect current issues, and are designed to have a positive social impact.”

The festival will feature new work by companies from all over the UK including Manchester’s Community Arts North West (CAN), Liverpool’s Collective Encounters, Entelechy Arts from London, Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre– and, of course, acta themselves. Workshops, meanwhile, will be hosted by an even broader church of companies including Divadlo bez Domova (Slovakia), and Holland’s Rotterdams Wijktheater. Respected writers and academics Francois Matarrasso, Helen Nicolson and Kerrie Schaefer, meanwhile, will lead debates and discussions around the sector’s key issues.

So who is all this splendid stuff aimed at? “The festival is for those interested in learning more about community theatre across the UK – students, practitioners, academics, participants – to share our learning and to celebrate the diversity of original community theatre,” Neil explains. “It’s a response to the increased interest in this kind of work and the opportunities it offers. Following a fundamental shift in the Arts Council’s approach to diversity, all national funded theatre programmes are working to be more reflective of the communities they serve.”

The festival is based at the acta’s home in Bedminster: most shows and some workshops will take place there, with others at local community venues. One performance will also take place at Arnolfini on the evening of Tuesday 14 June. Each day’s programme starts at 10am with a morning-after discussion about the shows from the previous day. The rest of the day is given over to workshops: these include a session on Arts & Communities, at which acta’s executive director Helen Tomlin will present the Company’s approach to developing this new community theatre programme.

Elsewhere, MED Theatre – a Devon group that works with young people disadvantaged by rural isolation and lack of facilities – will lead a workshop to explore the challenges of working rurally. And members of the learning team at Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre will share an insight into their work in the community and criminal justice settings, including their three-year residency in Scotland’s largest jail, HMP Barlinnie.

“Diversity and excellence are at the core of acta’s mission to provide access to culture, and to create quality theatre with the least engaged and diverse sections of society,” Neil concludes. “acta’s ambitious projects make theatre and the arts part of people’s lives, both as audiences and as active, creative participants. We create theatre with people without privilege, who are not connected to the cultural life of the city – isolated older people, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; vulnerable young people; disabled people; people living in areas of least engagement.

“We want to play a strategic role in the development of community theatre at a national level, working with our sister organisations to promote community theatre that is relevant, reflective and accessible to the least engaged communities – and building a new audience for theatre.”

National Festival of Community Theatre June 13-16, acta centre, Bedminster and elsewhere. For more info, visit www.acta-bristol.com/festival

Main photo: The Bed by Entelechy Arts