My role in a community arts project

I researched CAOS which is a company based in Glasgow and work to strengthen community bonds and raise aspiration through quality community arts provision. The different roles include a project manager, volunteer coordinator, project worker, board member, volunteer and sessional team.

If i had to choose a role in this particular company i would be part of the sessional team because they come from a variety of back grounds, some are dance, drama, visual arts or music speciality. I would have to contact the project manager to work on the sessional basis.

A sessional worker is defined as a person not employed under a contract of employment. He/she is paid for undertaking work or a service on the basis of an agreed range of hours to be worked. This has to be within a specified period, or on an ad hoc arrangement to meet varying need.  

Toolbox theatre

“One young person I supervise, it’s quite frankly changed his life!”







Toolbox Theatre is committed to providing high quality participatory theatre and drama for young people and their communities. All of Toolbox Theatre’s work is designed and delivered to be focused, engaging and inspiring.










Past projects 
Their past projects prove how much progress they have made as a company and are still making right now. They take their projects very seriously and most of these projects are based on the problems young people face today but are portrayed in a way of helping the performers and audience to understand easier. This company also seems like a lot of fun to be part of and they allow the young people a to be free to express themselves. 

COME CAMP WITH ME – June 2013 Performed by all 55 members of CYT, this original piece of work was a full mask romp full of tents, tears and tantrums. Set on “Faulty Showers Campsite” we followed the antics of two friends through the 70′s, 80′s to the present day. On the way there was plenty of sweet love, bitter rivalry and scheming trickery. Come Camp with Me was supported by Bishops Cleeve Parish Council and the Rotary Club of Cheltenham Cleeve Vale.

HO STOLE THE KING’S CAKE – March 2013 Over three months Toolbox Theatre worked with Creative Media Diploma students from Cleeve School and Chipping Campden School to develop a promotion event for the launch of Cleeve Youth Theatre’s new Beginners group. The students devised ‘Who Stole the King’s Cake’ – an interactive piece of theatre designed to enthrall, engage and delight 5 -7 year olds.

I WANT HIM BACK - November 2012 Cleeve Youth Theatre created work around the ‘I want him back’. With interpretations of the sentence spanning from stories of bereavement, bullying, mental health and magical journeys; the evening was a testement to the talent and creativity of CYT.

TOILETHEAD! – August 2012  Toolbox Theatre and Cleeve School teamed up to bring together young people from across Bishops Cleeve for Summer School 2012. The participant created a devised piece of theatre exploring the worries, fears and anxieties that go hand in hand with moving up to secondary school.

THE WILLOW PATTERN – APRIL 2012 Presented by Cleeve Youth Theatre in partnership with Cleeve School. A story of a forbidden love,betrayal and friendship based on a Chinese tale. Forty young actors from CYT told this funny, moving and thought-provoking story through puppetry, music and dance.

DOG DOWN! – AUGUST 2011 This thrilling ‘WHO DUNNIT?’ murder mystery show was produced as part of our summer school week.

A DAY IN THE HILLS – JUNE 2011 Based on the memories of Bishops Cleeve residents, A Day in the Hills was a highly successful piece of theatre devised by the whole of CYT. Imaginative, energetic and touching theatre about country life during the 1930’-40’s; full of puppetry, music, song and dance. 

Ten Ten theatre

This community group really interested me as they have philosophy to "live life to the full."(which is why the name is "TenTen") I believe the focus on religion for this group really helps people(who may not understand) to understand why and what this group does. Clare has a background in finance and was the business manager for Christies auction house education department in London. Martin had a successful career as an actor (including stints in a West End musical and at the National Theatre) before becoming a freelance writer on television and radio drama.

The organisation employs over 30 actors and facilitators every year who work on a project-by-project basis. Each team member comes to the company with professional training and/or experience. The core team is completed by Anna O'Brien, Clare and Martin's mum, who works in a full-time voluntary capacity as the Adminstrator.

Rehearsing as a group

Friday was a very productive day, as we started to put all of our work to the performance space. he interesting thing was that the material we have is not very typical or obvious in any way, but very meaningful. We started off with a group of two's coming on stage one at a time to do the mirror/Columbian hypnotism exercise. We then pretend as if we are throwing something at the projecting(which is of a brick wall) to break it down. After this we go into our partners ambition movements and then have a sort of mini interview which portrays our similarities and differences. Each group then went off to rehearse their scenes, it was quite hard for our group as there were only three of us, but we came up with idea to adapt around this! It was interesting to see how the Turn around group are in a rehearsal as it required a lot of focus and repetition, which they may not have been used to!

Recording!!!

This morning the group for "These days" were in the recording studio!! I arrived a bit late, however i managed to make it in time for the singing vocals to be added on. This was really amazing as all of our work over the weeks has finally been taken and recorded professionally. It really how what team work and allowing different skills to be put into a project can get very far! I did not think there would be this much support and enthusiasm and this session really made me realise how close we have all become! It's so weird how today in the recording studio, it didn't feel like "BRIT and Turn around centre recording" it just felt like we were simply one team and all as one.

Turn around games and acting scenes

Today, the guys from turn-around hosted a different game which goes towards their Arts award. This was very fun as we were all very supportive and enthusiastic, however there was some loss of focus throughout the games. It was nice for the rolls to change as the BRIT people usually hosted the games and so it was nice to see a bit of a difference.

We then moved on to the acting scenes, where there were three separate groups. Two groups focused on real life situations (one from turn around, one from BRIT) and this was very effective as we were seeing it in a theatrical interpretation. The group that i am in, i believe it is very brave that the material we have is being expressed; i really think it will open people's eyes and help them to understand more about how words and bullying can effect people and families. Honestly, our group did lose a lot of focus (partly because we were missing the person we needed most) but i do think there should have been more focus on such a serious situation. Will (unintentionally) brought some Brecht style theatre into our piece, where he wanted to include signs, multi-role characters and make something serious appear comical. He was very happy finding out that his ideas were Brecht!

Progression and performing

Today we Split up into three groups to work on the songs we created. My group created a brand new song including: instruments, voice and rap. At first we improvised and it started to come together and sound really good. We were all supportive of each others ideas and now it needs a bit more work and cleaning.

One of the groups performed today and the progression was amazing. It sounded like it was already a successful song in the charts but of course it's a one of a kind ;) The fact that as a group we worked together and shared all of our skills to make such wonderful work. There were some aspects such as projection and confidence that needed some work, but that was only because they had performed that one time to an audience.