Education and Lifelong Learning

Integrated Work

Developed by Cumbernauld Theatre's Education Department to offer wider curriculum support for students in North Lanarkshire studying Higher and Standard grade English and Drama, this innovative project model has three elements.

1. Workshops for English and drama students, held in classrooms, with young professional actors performing extracts, leading discussions and exercises on key themes and issues in the texts and providing insights into role preparation.
2. Rehearsals - students are then invited to join the actors at the theatre for an intensive extra curricular rehearsal period as they prepare the text for performance as part of the North Lanarkshire Youth Arts Festival.
3. Professionally staged public performances of the text, providing many of the participating students with their first experience of performing for an audience, and providing schools audiences with access to performances of large company pieces, which many Scottish theatres cannot afford to stage.

Feedback from Project Crucible Workshops:

Excellent range of extracts covering many emotional reactions from the characters, with good ice breakers which jolted the less active into thought and action.English Teacher - Coatbridge

The workshops were effective and gave me more of an insight into the crucible. They taught me a lot more than I already knew.Drama Student Airdrie

Thoroughly enjoyable and time well spent.Drama Student Motherwell.

Future projects could include The House of Bernada Alba, Antigone and Merchant of Venice.

ArtsWork

A multi-award winning project "Artswork" is a progressive pro-active workshop programme designed to encourage senior pupils who are in danger of being excluded from the educational system to re engage with learning by participating in a wide range of Arts and creative industry practices.

The guiding principle of ArtsWork is to put the individual in touch with their full potential by giving them access to positive arts/creative learning experience. We guide them through a process we call "Edutainment" or "The Theatre of Opportunity" and empower them to take control of their learning outcomes and creative expression.

We connect the experiences to youth-culture. We use dance, drama, visual arts sculpture, painting, graffiti, design, DJ, sound sequencing, video, web, and graphic art, Taiko drumming, magic, circus skills and special effects make-up.

The workshops culminate in an event/exhibition which takes place in Glasgow giving the pupils the opportunity to showcase their new found skills and engage with teachers, peer groups and future employers in a positive exchange of ideas and information.

Fusion

Fusion is an innovative and dynamic initiative specifically designed to address problems of communication, self esteem, collaboration, team work and multi-tasking through creative and pro-active learning. Fusion targets Primary 7's and is offered to those students identified by the teachers as needing assistance in making the transition from Junior to Senior School.

Arts based, the project introduces the young people to a variety of creative options from Drama, Dance and Magi to Sculpture and Video Technology. The weekly workshops are supplemented by an Easter and Summer School at the Theatre where the children spend a week developing a production/exhibition.

The many positive spins-offs from this project include giving the children the confidence to develop their own creativity, improve their communication skills, to awaken an interest in the performing arts and to introduce them to a culture of theatre going.

Nursery/Primary Tours

Nursery Tour

Each year we devise a tour for nurseries in North Lanarkshire and the Greater Glasgow area. This year we toured The Elves and the Shoemaker, incorporating, drama, puppetry, and singing with aspects of pre school learning - recognition of shape, pattern, counting, and rhymes.

Feedback received for The Elves and the Shoemaker:

Artists were very enthusiastic. Children loved it. Costumes/accents were excellent.

The whole performance was enjoyed by both staff and children. The involvement of the children both when they were seated and when they were physically active was very good.

Thank you for a really terrific performance. We all thoroughly enjoyed the show and out parent helpers were most impressed. We are looking forward to next years performance.

Primary Tour

Supported by North Lanarkshire Council with participating schools selected and subject areas identified by 5-14 Expressive Arts Adviser. These performance and participation workshops are designed to be played in classrooms and dining halls and will usually feature at least two facilitators - teachers in role model - to lead the class. The workshops will incorporate narrative, creative and co-operative group tasks, problem solving and pure drama.

Past productions included the Egyptians, which featured a trip up the Nile in a slave ship, decoding hieroglyphics and some DIY mummification. Euro Tour, a frantic bus trip across Europe with a shopping list of continental delicacies and a purse full of Euros, and 2003s Knights and Castles, with battles, sieges and armour songs.

Feedback received for Knights and Castles:

The workshop was very well organised and managed. I could not identify any areas that did not work. I have P6 that range widely in behaviour and ability and thanks to the "company", every pupils needs were met.

The workshop was totally interactive and the children were absorbed from beginning to end.

Thank you for the workshop. It was really wonderful.