An exciting project that interacts with some of our sheltered housing residents to turn their memories into a play will come to life later this year.
Reality Theatre, a Newport based company which builds plays around social issues and aims to interact with people of all ages have recently been working with Derwen residents who live at Pant y Celyn, Malpas, and Treberth, Newport.
Residents aged between 60 to the age of 99 have been sharing their stories, memories and photographs with actors from the company.
The actors will then create characters and tell the resident’s stories in their Telling Stories project and play.
Julie Benson, the director of Reality Theatre Community Interest Company said “I was really glad when we approached Derwen and they said yes”.
“Over a period of 3 to 4 months we visited Pant y Celyn on a weekly basis and met with residents to hear their stories”.
“The idea behind Telling Stories is to not only create something about resident’s stories, but it also gets them interacting with people of all ages”.
“Residents help out with every aspect of the play, including set design, costume and choosing music”.
“It’s a fictional account of their stories and we do merge some of the characters” said Ms Benson.
“We make one long story based on the people that have contributed”.
“We have had one lady who said that life begins after 60” said Ms Benson. “She has travelled all over the world and on her 80th birthday she went abseiling”.
Vikki Hiscocks, Head of Active Living said ”We are delighted to be working in conjunction with Reality Theatre, it has been a great experience for our residents. The residents have really embraced the opportunity to share their life stories both with Reality Theatre and with each other, and we can’t wait the see the play at the Riverfront in April”.
Article added 7th March 2018
