ANDY SMITH THEATRE
Images: Minty King
HOW DO WE ACT? WHAT CAN WE DO?
THREE PLAYS IN A DAY – A CALL TO ARMS
We’d like to invite you to join us for a day of making, discussion, and action taking place on 17th of June 2025 at Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot between 10am and 5.30pm.
The day will revolve around performances of three plays in our ongoing project PLAYS FOR THE PEOPLE. These are plays that ask questions of acting in both a theatrical and ethical sense. Plays for audience-participants to read together and then discuss. Plays where the people in the room play the people in the play.
These works look to make a framework for meeting and conversation. They hope to use the act of gathering the theatre offers to maintain motivation, share ideas, keep the courage up and potentially encourage action.
The plays are A CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY, which tells the story of a group of people meeting to discuss the climate emergency, HOW CAN WE BE MORE ANTIRACIST?, which explores ideas of historical, structural and social discrimination, and the first play in the series, THE ACTIONS, which considers the effectiveness of political activism. Since their creation, as well as theatre settings, these plays have been presented in schools, community and volunteer groups.
We are at a point where we want to develop and test the reach and possibility of this project further. To do this, we’d like to invite as many people as we can from across several sectors to join us at Shakespeare North for this day. You might be a member of staff at a theatre or arts centre or a freelance practitioners and facilitator. You might be a university lecturer, a teacher working in a school or colleges, or work or volunteer at a grassroots or community organisations. All are welcome. Lunch will be provided.
Marking these texts being published together in one volume/resource for the first time, the day will also include some short talks, guidance and discussion. Over the course of it we will perform the plays together. We will tell the story of the project. We will outline and build on its aims. We will play together and act together, and in doing so we hope we might encourage a meeting of minds, foster a sense of solidarity, and through doing all this train and encourage you, the participants to take the plays away with you and organise your own performances of them with your own communities and constituencies, in your own theatres, halls and classrooms.
As an attendee, you will be given a copy of this book/resource, as well as access to PDFs of scripts of the plays following the day that you can download and print out. We’ll be asking that you send us a short report of any activity that you might undertake if possible – which play, where and who with – but the main invitation from us is that following this day is that you will be able to organise and create performances of your own, with the people that you work with and want to reach.
No royalty to us will be necessary. You can have them for free. We’d like to encourage that you put them on in places like we have, including schools, universities, community halls, churches, theatres, rooms above pubs and empty shopping units. We hope that in what can feel like difficult and even fragile times we can encourage further gathering and discussion around pressing themes between a diverse range of people from different ages and backgrounds. That such activity can and will continue to happen.
We hope to encourage a sense that we can act. That we can feel that we can do.
To broaden our reach and make this as accessible as possible, we’d like to offer places for participants on this day on a sliding scale. You can book a place at a price you feel you or your organisation can afford: £15, £25 or £45.
If you or the institution or organisation you represent can pay the higher rate (or even a little more), we ask that you consider it. Any extra funds raised will allow us to create bursaries for attendance as well as helping to cover travel for those that might need it, and make sure the day is as accessible as possible. If you have access needs, if you would like to attend but don’t have the funds, or indeed if you have any questions about any of this then please do write to us. You can find details on how to reach us on the contact page of this website.
Took book a ticket for the day, please visit the Shakespeare North Website by clicking here.
We would also be grateful if you might share this information/invitation any networks or individuals who you think might be interested in this opportunity.
Andy Smith & Lynsey O’Sullivan
The PLAYS FOR THE PEOPLE project has, at various stages, been supported by The Yard Theatre, Oldham Coliseum, The Dukes Theatre, Lancaster, The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Drama and Film, and The Social Responsibility and Impact Research funds at The University of Manchester. THE ACTIONS was made in collaboration with Sam Pritchard, and CAN WE BE MORE ANTIRACIST? Developed through conversations with Aleasha Chaunte.
