From Diana to Beckie

The sixth and final video postcard comes from Diana Quow who has sent her message to Beckie Mills, Projects Co-ordinator at the Almeida Theatre in Islington.

Diana fulfills a dual role for Theatre for a Change, working both as a Monitoring Officer overseeing and supporting the work of the practitioners at James Town Community Theatre, and as a facilitator for group of her own in James Town.

Diana lives in James Town and is a passionate campaigner for the rights of women, as well as for HIV/AIDS prevention and the reduction of Teenage Pregnancy.

Diana's group meets every Friday afternoon after school at Sacred Heart Technical College, a secondary school in James Town. She recorded her video at the main CTC building today before travelling up to Sacred Heart to meet her group who demonstrate the warm up song at the end of this video.

Beckie now has a week to send a reply back to Diana, who will send another video back to Beckie in the week beginning 19th November.

Click here to see Diana's video on YouTube.

In the company of Reggie

Reggie Tetteh is the fifth Theatre for a Change practitioner to send a video postcard - his goes to the Director, John Retallack, and the whole team at Company of Angels.

Reggie is a facilitator at the Community Theatre Centre in James Town, where he has lived all his life. He leads the 'Advanced Group' - a focus group comprised of long standing members of the theatre and the facilitators who run other all the other CTC workshops.

Last week Reggie took the Advanced Group to perform at a sewing/tailoring school in James Town for girls who are not currently in full time mainstream education. They performed and invited the audience to take part in their newest piece, about a girl who takes an older lover after her father loses his job and is unable to support her any more.

John has nominated the director Jaqueline Rice to represent Company of Angels by recording a response to Reggie's video postcard. Her video will appear here on Friday 16th November.

See Reggie's video on YouTube.

Susan introduces CTC

In this video postcard to practitioners Mercy Ojelade and Didi Hopkins at The Roundhouse in Camden, Susan Dartey gives us a guided tour of Theatre for a Changes' Community Theatre Centre in James Town, Accra.

The Community Theatre Centre functions as a laboratory for Theatre for a Change, a permanent base where young people from across James Town - many of whom are not currently in school - come to take part in Behaviour Change workshops and rehearsals for interactive performances in the local community.

Susan joined TfaC as a participant in 2003 and is now, like Collins (below), a Monitoring Officer covering a Teacher Trainee College in Accra. She still regularly comes to CTC to support the practitioners and take part in workshops with the Advanced Group of participants and facilitators.

See Susan's video on YouTube.

School days ... from Collins to Pilot Theatre

The third video in the Interact project comes from Collins Smith, a Monitoring Officer based in Ada in the Eastern Region of Ghana. His video postcard is for Marcus Romer and Sarah Seddon at Pilot Theatre.

Collins' job as a Monitoring Officer requires him to cover a large area of Eastern Ghana overseeing the work of a team of teachers and trainee teachers trained by Theatre for a Change to use Interactive Theatre in their schools.

This year Theatre for a Change is working with nearly 100 teachers, each with their own 'focus group' of 20 young people at their school examining issues like HIV/AIDS, human rights and teenage pregnancy.

Collins is responsible for supporting and developing these teachers, ensuring that their workshops are running smoothly and recording details about the workshops: numbers of people taking part, evidence of behaviour change in the participants and the size of audiences attending (and taking part in) Interactive performances.

If you're having difficulties watching the video, see it on youtube.

Debra Do Dey O!

The second Interact video comes from two of Theatre for Change's youngest facilitators, Amanda Enusha and Forster Gamashie, both 15 years old. Their video postcard goes to Debra Glazer, Schools Practitioner at Hampstead Theatre in North London.

Forster and Amanda both started out with Theatre for a Change as participants at Theatre for a Change's Community Theatre Centre in James Town in 2003. They have acted in numerous Interactive Theatre performances in the local community and both became practitioners in 2007.

Their workshops take place at the same time on a Saturday afternoon. Both have groups of up to twenty young people - many of whom are the same age or older than them. Last Saturday they experimented with combining their workshop: a difficult task in the relatively small space available at CTC.

This video was recorded at Theatre for a Change's office in South Labadi - the first time that Amanda had been to the hub of TfaC's operations in Ghana. After shooting the video we ran a small training session on using the internet and set Amanda up with a brand new email address.

Debra's response to the video should appear on this site by Friday 16th November.

See this video on YouTube.

Dear Gabby ...

If you are on a slow internet connection, please be patient while this video loads.

The first video postcard from a Ghanaian practitioner is from Theatre for a Change's Nii Kwartelai Quartey to Gabby Vautier, the Audience Development Co-ordinator at the Young Vic Theatre in London.

Nii has been involved with Theatre for a Change since it was founded by Patrick Young in 2003. He has lived in James Town, where TfaC has a Community Theatre Centre, for his whole life and is currently the Training Officer at TfaC's new Community Theatre project in Amasaman, in the north west of Greater Accra.

Nii shot his video on Sunday before, during and after a training workshop for 20 young people from Amasaman and surrounding areas. Ten of these young people will start their own workshop groups ('focus groups') in January, while the other ten will remain together to form their own Interactive Theatre performance group.

Read more about the Amasaman Project.

As well as his work as a Practitioner and Training Officer, Nii has also performed in numerous Interactive Theatre performances and has a written a number of his own plays.

Depending on your Internet connection, you may need to wait a short while for this video to load. If you would like to view it on Youtube, please click here.

Please check back soon for Gabby's response to this first Interact video postcard.

Stepping into action: the TfaC participants

The Interact Link project begins this week, with practitioners working for Theatre for a Change in Ghana making their video postcards to send to a group of practitioners working for various theatres in the UK.


(Clockwise from top left: Nii Kwartelai Quartey, Foster Gomashie, Amanda Enusah , Regi Tetteh , Collins Smith, Diana Quao, Susan Dartey)

The practitioners in Ghana all perform slightly different roles across the range of workshops and activities that TfaC operates. Some are Monitoring Officers for TfaC's Teacher Training programme which helps 100 teachers use Interactive Theatre with their own classes and focus groups. Some are young faciliators - running their own groups in James Town and other areas of Greater Accra. Others are Training Officers - teaching local young people how to become facilitators in their own communities.

All of them started out as young participants with Theatre for a Change and all of them are running their own projects in the field - some at the Community Theatre Centres in James Town and Amasaman, others based at Teacher Training Colleges in the districts around Accra. They are all really excited about this project and creating links with practitioners in the UK.

Over the next five days they will all create a video postcard to send to their link practitioner in the UK. All videos (and, by the end of next week, the responses to them) will be posted on this blog: please check back regularly for updates.