Edinburgh and HIgh Tide Theatre Company

Hello dear readers,


So, since RADA, I've had a couple of weeks meeting relatives I've never seen before in my life, eating lots of food and having a few beers..but, it's back to business for my last two weeks in London.

Well, really, I went to Edinburgh, where I hung out with High Tide Theatre Company who focus mostly on new work by English and American playwrights. I met Steven Atkinson, the Artistic Director back at the beginning of 2010 for the National Play Wrighting Festival held in Brisbane. I had a talk with him about the work they do and when I was planning my RADA course, I thought, who else can I contact while in London? And High Tide seemed lie a wonderful idea! I've been very lucky that they took me on to see what their company does.
To read more about High Tide, go to www.hightide.org.uk
You can even click on the Blog Link to August 19th and you will find a blog from me!

At the moment, I am back in London, and doing a short internship with theatre company ' Only Connect' it's very different to High Tide, which is great, because it's giving me another perspective.
'Only Connect' only work with ex-prisoners and offenders and is very community based. Although full stage, music and film productions happen within the company, all involves ex-prisoners and rehabilitation experiences. The ex-prisoners go meet 'Only Connect' while in Prison, doing workshops. If they like it, they can choose to join 'Only Connect' after prison and complete in a one week course. Here they can go into Youth teaching and helping prevent crime of other young people, or they can go on to be in 'Only Connect' productions. They are then selected to become private members, with 'Only Connect' being a place of support even after there time finished with them.
There's proof that the programs have lowered the rate of offenders returning to prison from 60% to 20% which I think is quite remarkable and shows that if people in these positions are offered a sense of community and an opportunity to show and use their talents, it really does give them a sense of purpose in life and diversion to not turn back to what they were doing before prison. It's amazing the power of theatre can change lives this way.
To find more about Only connect, there website is www.onlyconnectuk.org

That's me for now. I will write more on my return to Australia- next week!!
I am learning so much, and meeting so many people. Form the biggest Arts event in the world, Edinburgh, to meeting ex-prisoners who have found the power Theatre has to them, to meeting some of the top producers and directors and teachers in London, I feel immensely grateful for this experience. Thankyou once again to the Queensland Goverment through Arts Queensland's Career Development fund and The Ian Potter Foundation, Cultural Trust for this opportunity.

Claire :)