Last month, a group of secondary school students performed their own gothic adaptations of Sleeping Beauty at the New Wimbledon Theatre, thanks to a project organised by the Wimbledon Civic Theatre Trust – a charity working to inspire and motivate young people through the creative arts.
Lauren May caught up with the charity’s creative learning manager Andrew Alty, to find out how it is helping young people.
Lauren May: What is the Wimbledon Civic Theatre Trust?
Andrew Alty: Wimbledon Civic Theatre Trust, that funds the majority of the work we do, has been in its current form since 2004 and its main objection is to create theatre and art-based projects for young people in Merton, particularly those living with some kind of disadvantage, be it economic or physical.
We do a lot of outreach work and deliver workshops and classes in schools.
LM: The charity’s latest project was a reimagining of Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty. What has that been like to work on?
AA: It’s been the most exciting project that I think I have ever been involved in and I have been doing this for 20 or 30 years.
We were working with Matthew Bourne’s company, New Adventures.
It was a response project to his production of Sleeping Beauty that showed at the New Wimbledon Theatre in April.
We were taking those young people to dancing on a whole other level but they rose to the challenge and I think that’s the most exciting thing.
With young people, you set a challenge they really embrace it.
There were people on that stage who had never danced before to anyone, never mind 600 people, and that was very exciting.
And some of those young people were profoundly disabled and to have them on stage dancing unaccompanied was incredibly moving.
LM: What do the young people get out of the projects they take part in?
AA: They can learn self-confidence, build their self-esteem and improve their social skills.
They come and meet kids from all different parts of the borough and that is really exciting, but the most important thing is discovering their own creative abilities.
One of the things that young people tell me they have learned is how disciplined you have to be to get up on the stage.
Being creative is not easy and you have to work hard, but a lot of them really rise to the challenge.
LM: What are the charity’s upcoming projects?
AA: We have two summer projects coming up. The first is Just Dance. Over the course of a week they do lots of different routines of dance pieces and then perform a series of dance pieces on the Friday.
We also have a musical theatre summer workshop that is about encouraging kids to think about how to act, sing and dance at the same time.
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