I set out to write Turning Points in 1997, with the fixed idea of finding some way to prove that an individual's participation in the arts could have a beneficial effect on their participation in wider community life and indeed could, in some circumstances, have a profound influence on their future life direction. As a practitioner for nearly two decades, I have seen countless examples of people undergoing major life changes following their participation in community theatre. I see the process happening constantly: sometimes slowly, almost imperceptibly over a prolonged period; sometimes instant, dramatic.
At the time I set out to find a way of documenting and proving this case, it seemed an unpopular notion. I was sure that what I was trying to prove would be dismissed as the ravings of a crank, the over-enthusiasm of an inveterate enthusiast.
I've been very surprised to see how the climate of understanding has changed over the period from 1997 to 2001. The beneficial effect of the arts on participants is now an accepted fact.
I feel, in common with many colleagues, like a person who has been banging on a closed door for a very long time finding it suddenly flung open before them, greeted with welcoming smiles as a long-lost friend and honoured guest. The reactions of surprise and delight are mixed, perhaps understandably, with confusion and not a small degree of suspicion. It is hard to believe that no one heard the knocking before this, that the smiles are genuine, that the welcome will last.
For me, and thousands of other community artists, this is a major turning point for our sector. We have the opportunity to effect real change in the way that the arts are seen in this country. For the first time ever the work of community artists is being regarded as of national significance. The current is drawing us to the mainstream. This is what so many people have worked for, the chance to gain recognition for the arts as an integral and essential part of all people's lives, rather than a peripheral activity for an intellectual or privileged elite.
With this opportunity comes scrutiny. The claims we make for the effect of our work will be monitored, analysed and evaluated to an extent that will cause untold frustration within the community arts sector. We need to work with funding and government bodies to determine a sensitive, workable model to assess the impact of participation on individuals, and, further, on the communities in which they live.
The most compelling evidence remains the self-perception of participants themselves, the anecdotes and stories, the startling examples:
* overcoming serious lack of self-confidence to become a local councillor
* leaving drug dependency for a degree in theatre
* moving on from being a survivor in a mental health drop-in to taking the floor before hundreds of psychiatrists
The proof is in the people.
`Community Arts takes as its starting point that everyone is creative and that, essentially, everyone is an artist.... (It)... grew up as a response to the elitist approach of schools and arts institutions, which exclude the majority from being involved in the production of art'.
Webster, Mark (ed) Finding Voices, Making Choices (Nottingham: Educational Heretics Press, 1997)
County Galway Community Arts Network.
HISTORY AND NATIONAL CONTEXT
The roots of community theatre lie not only at the very beginning of the theatre form, but also at the beginning of communication. It is likely that physical enactment of events came before language and that stories, information, emotions and opinions were passed between early peoples by gesture, mime and enactment - a form of theatre.
County Galway Community Arts Network.
In this country (UK) the tradition of guild plays, mystery plays and mummers' plays were all forms where `non-professionals' were the producers and participants. As the idea and practice of professional players and companies became the norm, the creation of theatre by ordinary people was looked down upon. In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream we can detect the rot well set in, as the lords and ladies (and the professional playwright) sneer at the performance by the mechanicals. But surely in the persons of Bottom and company we have the essence of the community play. A group of people get together to make theatre, use their own ideas and creativity, design and make their own sets and costumes, adapt the script to their own devices and work together to cast and produce the show. There is even, in Peter Quince, a facilitator for the group: patient, encouraging, accommodating, his sole aim to `entreat, request and desire' his companions to learn their parts.
Amateur theatre has a long tradition in this country, matched by an equally long tradition of the term `amateur' being one of derision and censure. The historical pageant and its re- emergence in the twentieth century has been pointed to as a root of the community play, as has the work of the Unity Players groups that sprang up in the 1930s.
(Unity Players groups developed from workers' amateur dramatics clubs: an example is the Bristol Unity Players Club formed by Joan Tuckett in 1936. )
There is also evidence of some large-scale proto-community play projects in the 1960s, growing from the development of community theatre companies. The re-emergence of the community play in the last thirty years has its roots in the work of Peter Cheeseman at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke on Trent, the documentary plays of the Living Archive in Milton Keynes, and particularly in the work of Ann Jellico and the Colway Theatre Trust, established in 1979. By 1981 there were community plays happening in different parts of the country, including the one in Bristol that began my career in the arts.
Since then there has been a remarkable proliferation of the form, with many communities, villages, towns and cities across Britain creating community plays. The phenomenon has involved many people in the arts for the first time, and has proved to be a successful and regularly used vehicle for the promotion of civic pride.
Many communities have chosen the community play to celebrate the Millennium. In this country a national body has been formed to advocate the work, Community Plays UK 4 , and the community play movement has spread to different parts of the world, notably North America and Australia.
The community play of modern times has been defined succinctly by Richard Hayhow of the Open Theatre Company in nine points:
1 a large cast in the region of 100 people
2 a role for any member of the community who wants to be involved
3 participation in all areas of the process
4 a core professional team, including writer and director
5 a long set-up period (up to two years)
6 a play specially written and adapted for the community and expressing its wishes, needs and concerns, often a celebratory event
7 an innovative performance style including a role for the audience in the performance
8 a variety of community activities happening alongside it and related to it
9 a commitment to develop future activities after the play
This is only one definition, and there are elements with which many companies and practitioners would take issue, but it serves as a starting point.
David Jones sets out two models as defined by the practice of the Colway Theatre Trust and the work of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry:
In the Colway Model
work:
is written
is in the mainstream theatre tradition
is largely historical
is product-focused
uses participation
can be termed community theatre
In the Belgrade Model
work:
is devised
is in the community arts tradition
is largely issue-based
is process-focused
explores collaboration
can be termed communal theatre
THE ACTA MODEL
David Jones classifies ACTA's work as a `hybrid form' of the above. It is more a case of parallel evolution. ACTA's work, policy, code of practice and constituencies are all influences on how our model developed. Perhaps it is better to view ACTA's work as a genus on its own.
Jones, D. Aesthetic Justice and Communal Theatre: a new conceptual approach to the community play as an aspect of theatre for empowerment' (PhD thesis University of Warwick, 1996)
To borrow from David Jones' structuring above, the ACTA community play model:
1 is primarily concerned with individual and community development
2 determines theme and content through community consultation
3 is devised then scripted ; casting takes place without auditions
4 is based on living memory and present issues
5 holds process and product as equally important, and mutually dependent
6 actively promotes access and inclusivity to excluded sections of community, which impacts on production style
7 has a three year structure - pilot projects, play, consolidation - which works towards long-term sustainability of projects
Individual and community development
`There is no good reason for the public sector to disregard the community development benefits of participation in the arts. It is in the act of creativity that empowerment lies and through sharing creativity that understanding and social inclusiveness are promoted.'
Matarrasso, F. Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts (Stroud: Comedia, 1997)
* creating opportunities for exploring creativity
* validating individual experiences, and the history of the area
* giving a voice and a platform for expression
* creating a single focus for the energies of many
* creating an opportunity for all sections of the community to work together co-operatively
* discovering a shared identity and a reason for pride
* celebrating the unique culture of the area
* most importantly, in the whole process, fostering the development of self-confidence and self-worth, both in individuals and within the whole community