“ON TOUR” RURAL TOURING THEATRE AT HACKNESS AND DISTRICT UNDER 5S

BRINGING PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCES TO RURAL COMMUNITIES

As told by Janet Tildsley, Supervisor at Hackness and District Under 5s

Who is the main character of the story?

I’m the supervisor at Hackness and District Under 5s. We are part of the North Yorkshire Early Years Partnership and can take 24 children aged from 2 – 5 years. We are a community playgroup serving a large rural area and based in the village hall in Hackness. A committee of parents run the group.

What is the task or mission of the character?

I like to be able to offer the children quality activities that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience, particularly living in a rural area. To watch a live performance is a magical experience for children. It’s amazing to watch how they are transfixed in total belief that it’s real. I want to be able to offer this experience on a regular basis to ensure that all the children, parents and wider community members get an opportunity to take part.

Sharing in this experience with the children opens up many opportunities for the development of children’s language as they really enjoy the performance and want to talk about it afterwards with staff at the setting and with parents at home. It’s amazing how they can remember the detail of the performance for a long time afterwards.

To date we have put on 5 children’s performances and have been able to build on each experience through other activities such as transforming the home corner, story telling and music.

Who or what can help in this task?

We have a committee of parents who help with the organisation. We also have a good relationship with the local primary school that help to promote each event. The village hall committee are very supportive and keep the costs of hiring the village hall to put on the performance as low as possible.

The company/performer who has the expertise in delivering to early years audiences can advise us on how to get the best out of the performance e.g. what time of day to put it on and will generally add value to the event by inviting the children after the show to ask questions and to look at the set and props (something that does not happen in a large theatre setting). The children can also sit in a friendly way on the floor on mats close up to the production so it’s almost like it’s taking place in their living room.

What is getting in the way?

It’s very daunting at first and feels like a big financial risk, as you need to be able to sell enough tickets to cover the cost of the performance. You also need to have a big enough venue to accommodate your audience and this might be in your setting or perhaps the school hall but you may also have to hire the local village hall (as we do to put on these special events). We also need to attract a wider audience than just our own children to help us meet the costs and ensure that the ticket prices are not too prohibitive. Bringing in a wider audience does however have additional benefits in terms of community building – children and adults taking part in an activity together helps to generate a good community feeling and cooperation between people.

Putting on an event like this does involve work in terms of marketing and promoting the event and ideally the work is shared out among a number of volunteers (e.g. staff and/or parents) rather than one person doing it all. It’s also important that the quality of the performance is high as parents are happy to keep coming to watch performances with their children if they can trust that the quality will be good and if parents are supportive they will bring their friends along too so you can build up a regular audience for events.

How does the main character go about overcoming obstacles and using available help?
Another promoter in a neighbouring town introduced me to “On Tour”, our local rural touring theatre scheme and encouraged us to put on our own performance through the scheme. The scheme offers high quality companies that we can trust. They also offer support and training in how to market and promote a successful event.

These schemes often have funding which means that the performance can be offered at a subsidized rate, which is great for small venues, although this kind of funding isn’t always available. We take performances at full cost and find that we can make a small profit, which we use to support other cultural events.

The staff here do most of the work of organising the event and the event is promoted by the local primary school and through the local paper and radio who do it free of charge for us. We also put on some refreshments for after the performance and this helps us to make a bit of extra profit to put into other events.

If we were struggling with the organisation of the event we could consider working in partnership with others, such as the local primary school or another setting to share the work but also the rewards of putting on an event. Our confidence has grown and I now feel able to promote outside of the scheme, researching suitable companies for myself using the internet.

What is the outcome?

We are able to confidently put on performances for our children, which are successful events that the children want to talk about for a long time afterwards.

The parents enjoy sharing these events with their children too and in many cases are inspired to go on and access other theatre performances with their children, for example, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre or Scarborough Library Theatre - we always let them know what’s on. The parents gain the confidence to do this after their children have been introduced to theatre in a relaxed setting where they feel comfortable.

Story told by Janet Tildsley, Supervisor at Hackness and District Under 5s

Storycatch supported by City of York Council (Inclusive Arts, Arts & Culture) - July 2010