History
In February 2020, before the last performance of ‘fell’ we ran a workshop for some young people from Mahdlo. This group of young lads of different abilities watched excerpts from the play, performed by Tarek Slater and Daniel Paul, and asked questions about the characters’ emotional state, their backstory and what might happen to them next. We also engaged them in some stage combat techniques, brilliantly demonstrated by our fight director, Tom Conwy.
The group stayed to watch the show and afterwards one of the youngest asked to speak to me. His name is Eoghan and he told me he wanted to be a writer. He asked if I would help him to write a play. I said, ‘yes’. Of course.
But… encouraged by the great team at Mahdlo the group started chatting over zoom and pretty soon they had decided to form a theatre company with the express purpose of writing and performing their own work. Ability Productions was born.
In September, after weeks of virtual chat, we have managed to get together with some of the group for a series of workshops at Mahdlo, building characters. I’ve been talking with Eoghan over zoom and we’ve been doing some writing exercises and constructing story ideas for the emerging characters.
'As Time... ' rehearsals.
Another member, Callum, is also isolating and we’ve been talking about the idea of him narrating the story in some way.
In the workshops, David, Jane, Naveed and Mitchell have been discussing how we might put this story together in a world where live audiences still seem a long way away so … watch this space!