Captivate: North Lanarkshire is being delivered this year with our lead partner Cumbernauld Theatre with support from North Lanarkshire Council and local organisations including Getting Better Together in Shotts and Wishaw Library. This years programme sees micro performance tours, creative play for families and workshop offers for nurseries and the public taking place in North Lanarkshire between Summer 2023 and Summer 2024.
The years programme includes:
Micro Tour of Little Toy & Take Home Tales Engagement Project
Photo Credit: Kit Rodman Orr – Engagement Take Over North Lanarkshire 2022
A micro tour of Shotts, Wishaw and Cumbernauld of Tragic Carpet’s Little Toy production supported by Wishaw Library, Getting Better Together and Cumbernauld Theatre. Followed by a co-developed 5 week creative play project in Shotts and Wishaw supporting families to make their own stories using found and made objects.
Enhanced Performances: Prism, Hopeful Monsters & Whirly Bird
Photo Credit: Ella Mackay Hopeful Monsters
Working with Cumbernauld theatre and their visiting visual theatre productions this year we are supporting artists to deliver bespoke workshop offers for local nurseries and public audiences tied to their performances. This includes an early years light and shadows theatre workshop delivered at Carbrain nursery before the class attended Lisa Wilson’s Prism in June and development of a non verbal creative play offer to follow Hopeful Monster Theatre’s Hopeful Monsters performances in August.
Image: PAS- AnimATE workshop at WHALE Arts in 2022
AnimATE
We’re bringing our much loved AnimATE workshop to North Lanarkshire in 2023, working wtih Croy Community Hub to offer this cooking and animating workshop session to families in the area. This pilot session with Croy Community Hub delivering the cooking session and Puppet Animation Scotland providing the animation session will be a first step to offering the sessions beyond Edinburgh for us.
Image: PAS – Open Rehearsal with Tortoise in a Nutshell in Edinburgh West
Puppetry & Emotional Resilience: Family Sessions
We worked with North Lanarkshire Council to identify a partner to deliver a pilot of our Puppetry and Emotional Resilience programme adapted for families to try at home. Broomlands Family Centre’s PEEP group worked with us to offer this 2 hr session to local parents and children. The group made simple puppets and spoke about how puppetry can be helpful to support conversation and relationship building at home, each family took home a puppet and storybook from the session.
In total, last year across North Lanarkshire, we delivered opportunities for 212 children through public performance and workshopping in addition to reaching 550 pupils through our puppetry and emotional resilience resources. We also supported 48 people through our visual theatre lab and puppetry training programme.
Read the full report about our work in North Lanarkshire in 2022 here.
Last years programme 22-23:
Performance & Workshops: Unicorn Dance Party by Ruxy Cantir and Sarah Rose Graber
A pop up dance party with visual and physical theatre performers Sarah Rose Graber and Ruxy Cantir as part of a weekend of family activity which took place outside Cumbernauld Theatre at Lanternhouse in Summer 2022 kicked off our pilot year of activity here.
Engagement Takeover: Puppetry for Early Years
Local artist Kit Roddman Orr and Glasgow based Ella Mackay delivered puppetry and visual theatre themed sensory play sessions once a week with early years groups including the Playground sessions at Cumbernauld Theatre and local Carbrain nursery over a 10 week period from January – April 2023.
Performance for Families:
Seven Ravens by Tragic Carpet
In Praise of Shadows by Julia Darrouy and J Diaz
Are Ye Dancin by Diane Thornton
A trio of new performance featuring shadow puppetry, clowning and micro theatre for families and early years was programmed as part of ongoing family programming at the theatre incorporating studio performance, pop up outdoor shows and cafe based performance.
Image: Seven Ravens Tragic Carpet
Visual Theatre Lab
Artist development activity for local and Scottish based theatre makers interested in developing visual theatre for families with a focus on audiences with specialist needs was developed with Tenterhooks Theatre company and will feature contributions from established visual theatre makers – taking place in April 2023.
Puppetry and Emotional Resilience
With the support of North Lanarkshire Council our Puppetry and Emotional Resilience programme was delivered extensively across North Lanarkshire with 5 primary schools, 12 teachers participating in the programme and a further 6 individual early years practicioners attending a one day CPD version of the programme in Aidrie.