The first day: new resources & projects for theatre and creative learning
Students in New York City making drama workshops with C&T to share in Prospero, two weeks before the closure of schools.
Students in New York City making drama workshops with C&T to share in Prospero, two weeks before the closure of schools.
What a week. On Monday, the UK government effectively closed all theatres and arts venues. By Friday, apart for access for the children of key workers, schools are closed. We are not alone.
It’s a blow for the arts, a blow for education and a double blow for arts education.
C&T finds itself in an almost unique position: a theatre and education company with the capacity to deliver projects, programmes and resources digitally. Our Prospero theatre facilitation technology was designed to enable online creative learning. We feel that puts a special responsibility on us.
So we have decided in the weeks and months ahead to do our very best to maximise the potential of Prospero for everyone. We think we can do this in three ways:
1. Making free resources available to schools and universities; home learners and teachers.
2. Supporting artists, teachers, voluntary groups and charities to use Prospero to enable them to maintain their work with often vulnerable groups.
3. Offer discounted Individual subscriptions to teachers, so they can use the platform cheaply and effectively with their cohort of students.
Today, in addition to the resources already available for free in the Prospero Library, we are announcing the first phase of this programme, all facilitated by Prospero:
A free online theatre-based Lip Sync Battle Festival, where students can make their own drama-based lip syncs from their own homes. The program will culminate with an online celebratory lip sync festival for all.
A documentary drama, ‘Living Newspaper’ project, with students document and dramatising and sharing the untold news stories of our times.
In Trinidad and Tobago, Red Flag are using Prospero to develop a programme of theatre-based resources to support victims of domestic violence, who, because of self-isolation measures, are confined to their homes with their abusers.
In the South West of England, Growing Together Cornwall is using Prospero to creatively facilitate a gardening project with elderly people suffering social isolation in care homes.
For Fort Royal School, Worcester, we are making Prospero curriculum and therapeutic home teaching resources for families with children with a range of severe Special Education Needs, as part of our Time To Be Seen project .
Royal Opera House, London, composer Martin Ward is working with Prospero to create a set of music education workshops, through which children and families can make music together at home.
C&T in Korogocho, Kenya, preparing to make a virtual reality motorbike tour of the Nairobi slum, by gaffer taping a 360 VR camera to a biker helmet. The finished VR experience will be shared in Prospero.
In Nairobi, where COVID-19 is only just emerging, C&T is creating Prospero resources for smartphones, teaching through drama in English and Swahili, the simple hygiene and social distancing measures residents of the slum district of Nairobi need to stay safe.
We are enabling Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah to share a streamed version of Mike Kenny’s play The Vultures Song, telling the story of the partition of India. There is a package of follow up interactive workshops for students to explore the play and production further.
Through our partnership with New York City Department of Education, Prospero is being deployed to share theatre learning materials with the city’s 1.2 million students, now being home schooled.
A new individual Prospero license is available for teacher and independent practitioners, so anyone can make and share resources in Prospero.
This is just the start. More will follow. In the coming weeks we will share blog posts, videos and podcasts tracking the development of these projects, which we hope might provide some inspiration in these times. We will keep you posted as new resources become available and projects announced.
Prospero is free to sign up to. Check the tick box for our newsletter for updates.
And we actively encourage people and organisation who are in need, or have an idea, so we can explore ways of supporting you.