ANart Theatre

Feedback from the organiser
The Brunswick social club is run by people with learning disabilities for people with learning disabilities. Their motto is Freedom, Friends and Fun and their aim is to ‘join in like everybody else’. This means that I am always on the look out for opportunities for our members to take part in main-stream activities. This can be a challenge at times, because there are many barriers for people with learning difficulties to join in like everybody else. However, five members and three supporters of the social club have recently joint a drama group working on a production ‘Sleeping Beauty’ run by ANart Freedom Theatre. Rhiannon, the director, has actively reached out to our community (people with learning disabilities) and working together with myself and Emily Topp to make sure that they as a company gain awareness of the issues that a mixed ability drama group will present them with. I have attended the rehearsals up to now and has been extremely impressed by how the group is run.

Our involvement with the ANart Freedom Theatre is heartwarming and proves that it is possible to create an inclusive culture, whilst producing high quality performance, which will be enjoyed by the wider community, challenging further the perception people may have of people with disabilities.

The social club relies on people like Rhiannon leading the way, to achieve their motto and aims. I consider this project to be of great value to the community on many different levels and hope that the social club will be able to join in with many more exciting projects in the future.

Please find some quotes of some of the performers the social club has supported to join the project:

Stephanie Arksey: ‘I was not sure at all whether I would like it. In fact I did not want to go at first, even though I love drama. I was not sure about being with people I did not know. But I enjoyed it. Doing things with them makes me happy. Like joining the group makes me happy and to work on the piece together makes me happy. I now know that I do really like it and I will go every Sunday. I look forward to it.’

Anne Thompson: ‘I love it, because it is good. I go home and think about the drama session and then I come up with good ideas and tell everybody at the next session.’