Twelfth Night
— “How will this fadge???” 🥴
Our Co-Lead Lucie Dawkins directs a cast made up of members of the collective along with several brilliant Associate Artists.
Research and Development for our production of Twelfth Night began on the 28th of September last year, and have since been gathering on a weekly basis to explore, explode and experiment with Shakespeare’s text.
Why Twelfth Night?
At its heart, Twelfth Night is a story about a community waking up to joy again after a difficult time - which is fitting for our new venue. There’s something radical about insisting on joy in spite of dark times.
But it’s also a deeply complicated play about our responsibility to each other, and how desire and violence can be two sides of the same coin. Times are hard right now, and we deserve great daft joyous stories - but also ones that don’t shy away from the knotty parts of being alive.
Twelfth Night, we think, is one of Shakespeare’s best and most complicated stories. As a queer-led collective, this lovely gnarly play about desire and identity fascinates us. We also like to make a mess with our work and play fast and hard with the rules. And Twelfth Night is a banger (there’s a good reason people have wanted to hear it again and again for 400 years) - but it’s fortunately long out of copyright, so we can do what we want with it.
About our Twelfth Night Education Programme
Education is at the heart of SCRUM Theatre. We believe that every child is entitled to enjoy theatre and we are very proud to highlight the importance of learning and participation in theatre.
All SCRUM productions will have an education branch. For our production of Twelfth Night, we are developing digital and in-person educational resources for teachers and students, as well as workshops and free tickets to our performances. You can read more about this below.
We also offer interventions for schools and nurseries in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and beyond West London.
National Teachers Survey and our Twelfth Night Tour
In the UK, every child needs to pass a paper on Shakespeare to get their English GCSE. This means you have to access his plays before you can access further study and work opportunities.
The problem is that Shakespeare never wanted his plays to be read. So unless you experience an actor performing his words, they’ll never make complete sense.
Years of cuts to arts funding has meant more and more schools don’t have access to live theatre. And while state schools have been focusing less on arts education, private schools have been investing more into it. (Source: International Journal of Cultural Policy)
Last year, we created and distributed a national teachers survey, asking educators directly what they need and how arts charities like SCRUM Theatre can best support their work in the classroom. Based on these findings, we have been developing a programme of interventions for schools across the country.
We had overwhelming feedback from teachers that current theatrical educational provisions are inaccessible mainly due to two factors: their cost and that most educational theatrical offers are concentrated exclusively in London. While 76% of respondents indicated their preference for in-person workshops, teachers with declared caring responsibilities shared they were more likely to experience barriers to training due to finances, location and travel.
In response to this feedback, we will be travelling across the country to support schools, bringing workshops and Career Professional Development to schools directly.
When SCRUM’s production of Twelfth Night tours nationally, we hope to perform in postcode areas identified by ACE and DCMS as under-funded for the arts. In each area we go to, we will be offering workshops, resources and tickets to schools. All SCRUM Theatre educational interventions that are connected to our touring productions will be offered to schools and teachers free of charge.