Partnerships between theatres and universities have become exciting opportunities for exploration and collaboration. This one-day event will bring playwrights, theatre practitioners and academics together to discuss and explore different models, the opportunities and challenges that they present, and the funding sources available.

Schedule for the Day

10 - 10.10am Professor Laura Bradley: Welcome and Introduction

10.10 - 11.10am Case Studies from the Arts & Humanities: Nicola McCartney: Life as Story

Nicola McCartney’s work as a practitioner of Applied Theatre has directly benefited both theatre professionals and vulnerable groups internationally. Theatre professionals in Scotland, USA, Ukraine and Russia have benefited from training in Nicola’s Applied Theatre methods, which has enabled them to apply their typical practice to conflict resolution and the empowerment of disenfranchised individuals. Via her work with Rachel’s House, a prisoner re-entry programme in Ohio, women ex-offenders benefited from McCartney’s use of dramatic narrative as the basis for therapeutic interventions and to facilitate the integration of disenfranchised groups into mainstream communities. She has pioneered socially engaged theatre practice in Russia and Ukraine since 2004 and regularly works in the post-Soviet space, funded by British Council and other charities. She also works one to one with individuals and is currently working with Frantic Assembly (London) making a performance based on the life of a young asylum seeker trafficked from Albania.

Professor Greg Walker: Restaging Scotland's Renaissance Drama

The AHRC-funded 'Staging and Representing the Scottish Renaissance Court' project took place over three years, ending in August 2014, restaging Sir David Lyndsay’s 'A Satire of the Three Estates' as part of a wider investigation of the Scottish Renaissance, the Stewart court and modern images of national identity and the Scottish past. At its heart was the first full-length professional production of The Three Estates since 1554, on the Peel at Linlithgow. There were also performances in the Great Halls in Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle of the ‘lost’ first version of the play, first performed at Linlithgow in 1540. The project, led by Greg Walker and Dr Eleanor Rycroft, University of Edinburgh, and Professor Thomas Betteridge of Brunel University, brought together academics from across the U.K with archaeologists and historical interpreters from Historic Scotland and professional theatre and film-makers.

11:10 - 11:30am Tea and coffee

11:30am -12pm Dr Anne Sofie Laegran: Funding for Impact

12 - 1pm Case Studies from Health in Social Science: Professor Charlotte Clarke: Authority and Voice in Participatory and Performative Research

Research through and with the arts opens up possibilities for communication, expanding cycles of interpretation and presentation. In doing so, key questions about whose voice is being heard need to be asked, which challenge the presumed final authoritative voice of the researcher. These issues will be considered through discussion of a partnership between Skimstone Arts and academics, based on a programme of research into living with dementia. To date, this partnership had led to the development of two short films and several
performance pieces which have toured the UK.

Dr Marisa de Andrade and Gavin Crichton: Are we oppressed? Using Theatre of the Oppressed to explore minority ethnic groups’ perceptions of health and invite all to "Come on In!"

Come on In! was an innovative knowledge exchange project that transformed spectators – NHS practitioners, policymakers, community members and third sector professionals – by enabling them to step into, and change, the theatrical action presented by performers (minority ethnic and disadvantaged community members). The interactive performance, starring Romanian Roma, Slovakian Roma, Pakistani and Polish community members, used “Theatre of the Oppressed” techniques to breathe life and emotional and politicised findings into research initially funded by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde on perceptions of health, barriers to accessing services and
inequalities. This creative community event now constitutes as ‘evidence’ in an ESRC impact project called ‘Measuring Humanity’. The work is changing the way health and inequalities in community settings are understood, measured and inform policy, and it is also increasing understanding of how solidarity is linked to health and equity.

1 - 2:00pm Lunch

2:00 - 2:15pm Case study from the Arts & Humanities: Prof. Laura Bradley: Introducing Who’s Watching Who?
Twenty-five years after of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a collaborative project between award-winning dramatist Peter Arnott, ex-BBC filmmaker Susan Kemp, and Laura Bradley set out to explore the issues surrounding censorship and East German theatre. Peter Arnott used Laura Bradley’s research to create a new play called ENSEMBLE, and the project opened up the script development to audiences through the project blogsite and rehearsed readings of the three successive drafts of the play. Susan Kemp made a documentary film about the
underlying research, the development of the script, and the process of taking it to an audience. The film premiered at the Glasgow Film Theatre in 2016 and was recently screened at the Edinburgh Filmhouse.

2:15 - 3:55pm Film screening: Writing Ensemble: An Experiment in Theatre

4 -4:30pm Post-screening discussion with Peter Arnott and Laura Bradley.

From 4.30pm Wine reception

Registration is free of charge and lunch will be provided. Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options will be available, but if you have other dietary requirements, please email laura.bradley@ed.ac.uk by Thursday 15 June.

Note: Travel bursaries of up to £25 are available to playwrights travelling from outwith Edinburgh, on a first-come-first-served-basis. For more information, please contact emma@playwrightsstudio.co.uk

Creating Impact: Theatres and Universities