During the Easter holidays in response to young peoples desire to make more theatre venue based productions across the year we have spent 3 days in our local theatre Ammanford Miners Theatre developing devising and performance technique.

Day 1 saw the group explore diverse starting points and catalysts from songs, music, books, images, personal objects and site. During Day 2 we explored creative writing, character and plot. Day 3 was used to pull together the through line created by the young people and stage and rehearse with lights and sound their creation. Theatre designer Kirsty Harris worked alongside young people to create props, set and costume while musician Dan Lawrence supported young people with an interest to create a theme song and soundscape for the performance.

The young people were inspired by the theatre venue itself which at that time needed the lights and electrics to be updated to create a performance that utilised the flashing lights and subsequent noises they made. This led to the creation of a world that featured miscommunications between different times, hauntings, voyeurism, scientists, hairdressers and the unravelling of mystery and gossip. They posed the question ‘ Whose watching who? Are you watching us? Or are we watching you?!’

Despite the issues with the building electronics the young people thrived within the experience and are keen to return for our Winter production and build on their devising and performance techniques within a theatre venue setting.

Young people told us the experience was ‘ fun, chaotic, interesting, exciting, creative and new’ One new participant told us ‘ it was a wonderful opportunity to do something new, meet new people and everyone was friendly and welcoming’.