Blog: Why Collect Oral History?

Photograph of Theatre staff from the Daily Mail 1963
Photograph of Theatre staff from the Daily Mail 1963

The past is ‘This happened’ and then ‘This happened’ and then ‘This happened’, isn’t it? The past: a series of events, a series of dates even. If we want to make sense of the past  we can choose moments from it, try to sort out which moments are important, and link them – this led to this, this led to this, and this led absolutely nowhere (history as a basic theatre plot, if you like).

If we’re ambitious, we might even try to give past events some sort of meaning. Perhaps this event displayed a spirit of innovation; this showed a certain courage and this then revealed a sad timidity.

Much of the data we can gain is from written records. In the case of Chichester Festival Theatre, the records are extensive. There are all the contracts with directors, writers, actors, musicians, designers and the rest – including, of course, architects. And then there are all the theatre programmes and reviews. So there is a lot on the page already.

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Blog: Art Work Reveal

Artwork, Reveal, Chichester Festival Theatre, Workshops
Pass It On Artwork Reveal celebration at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Natasha Rose.

On the 12 July the first public event of the Pass It On project kicked off with a small gathering in the sunshine to celebrate the reveal of a large artwork inspired by Chichester Festival Theatre, displayed on the hoardings around the building.

A couple of blog posts ago Pass It On volunteer, Natasha Rose, wrote about her experience helping with art workshops which took place back in April with families from local charity and Pass It On partner, PACSO (Parent and Carers Support Organisation).  Last Friday we were very proud to officially reveal the artwork that had been produced using prints and designs created during these workshops.

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Blog: Word for Word: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre

Word for Word, CFYT, Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Volunteers
Youth Theatre members pose at the end of their performance of Word For Word

Between January and April of this year, 18 Year 11 Youth Theatre members and I were involved in creating a piece of Verbatim Theatre, a style of theatre where the text is taken directly from interview transcripts. As Youth Theatre intern, I was given the opportunity to run a project of my choosing. I decided to create and direct a piece of Verbatim theatre as it is a style that I had only ever written and thought about in an academic setting, never in any practical way. I asked for volunteers who would be interested in generating and performing such a piece. Continue reading “Word for Word: Chichester Festival Youth Theatre”

Blog: Family art workshops with PACSO

Sun prints, PACSO, partnership, Heritage Lottery, Learning
Making sun prints: Items from the props store were placed on photosensitive paper before being developed in water

Heritage Lottery Funding has enabled Chichester Festival Theatre to carry out a Heritage Learning and Participation project over three years, exploring activities such as workshops, working with schools, exhibitions, archiving and volunteer training in order to increase community collaboration and engagement with the Theatre, ultimately enhancing the awareness of its exciting Heritage. As part of this project, the Theatre ran two Family art workshops, in partnership with PACSO (Parents and Carers Support Organisation), My role as a volunteer was to research, collect data and record observations, in order to evaluate how valuable the workshops were in terms of engagement and learning for its participants and the other volunteers involved. This then enabled me to create an evaluative report and blog. Continue reading “Family art workshops with PACSO”