Act Your Age workshops for over 55s have been delivered to plan and transferred to Zoom successfully during the lockdown. This work has now returned to ‘in-person’. The group have produced short stories and developed new story-telling skills. Output from this group has included radio plays, scripts with digital production, and outdoor promenade performances.

In Summer 2021, we featured seven radio play monologues created by the Act Your Age participants during the spring term on social media, the series is a playlist on our YouTube channel.

SPECIAL DELIVERY

A collaboration with Suffolk Artlink – Special Delivery – involved participants working on developing a script from hidden stories and characters from Suffolk Regiment letters from Dunkirk 1940. Stories created were recorded and produced digitally. The project was shared through our partners Suffolk Record Office and the Beyond Walls Festival (June 2021). This project also involved members of the Suffolk Regiment and was distributed via Suffolk Regiment Museum in June 2021.

QUARTER SESSIONS

In January 2021, a new drama based on research volunteers have uncovered from Suffolk Records Office, was created. Quarter Sessions looks at minor crimes that were brought to the courts in the 1700s and explores the notions of vagabonds.

CHRISTMAS LIGHT SWITCH-ON

Act Your Age participants also performed at the Christmas Light Switch-On event in Bury St Edmunds – a promenade performance of music and song which attracted a lot of press and media attention.

200th ANNIVERSARY

Close Encounters was Theatre Royal’s 200th Anniversary Tour – an immersive tour of the building with actors, for the public. Act Your Age participants were able to audition for the tour and the tour featured participants playing the ‘two fine ladies’ and the ‘beer barrel men’.

Act Your Age is now embedded in to the core work of the Creative Learning department at Theatre Royal using a self-funding model.