Transitions Phase Two

When Transitions Phase One was drawing to a close we evaluated the work. We recognised that when working with the homeless community across the city region we were encountering other issues including addiction and mental ill health. We were starting to work with recovery services and felt that Transitions phase two needed to expand to include partnerships with a broader range of services and organisations. Which is what we did.

Again this was a three year project, as well as the outreach work in which we ran Open Awards so people go accredited for their work, we developed a core group, who came to us at MPAC, developing improvisation, drama and performance skills. One of the first projects the Core group got involved with was performing in ‘Out of Service’ at the Imperial War Museum North. This was a project that had been developed in workshops with Veterans in Manchester, and it explored leaving the armed services and the transition to ‘civy street’, it was an amazing project, which broke down lots of barriers and raised the performance skills of the group.

Then came the development, rehearsal and tour of Farewell Welfare, a Cabaret of chopping and cutting, which shone a light on the welfare reforms that the newly elected government of 2015 were instituting.

Following the success of transitions first tour the group worked on co-creating characters to shine a light on the abuse that homeless people were experiencing on the streets, these characters and lots of poems and conversations were shared with Artistic Director Sarah Thornton, who wrote them into a play Cracked, which toured hostels, theatres, libraries and community spaces on three regional tours. Nobody in the cast will forget the freezing warehouse in Leeds.

Other highlights of Transitions phase two were; Performing at a national Homeless services conference at Warwick University; Taking a piece of forum theatre to the BackStage and Me event in Manchester; marching and then facilitating at the Recovery Walk in Warrington; performing for Light Nights at Blackburn house; Singing at the May Day Parade; facilitating two level three Facilitator Training weekends; facilitating one to one character workshops at the wet garden and helping five women achieve an entry level one qualification; working with some incredible organisations and partners; seeing participants grow in confidence and skills.