Satellite Writers Groups

Synergy Writers Group

We are working in partnership with Synergy and Theatre 503 to run this group with 10 ex-offenders. Steve Harper, Literary Manager at Theatre 503, a series of guest writers and Ellie Fulcher as a member of the Royal Courts Participation team will work with the group. The group ran over 10 weeks and a sharing of the groups work took place in the Site directed by Megan Doyle and performed by professional actors. We also organised a series of theatre trips for the group to have a sustained engagement with the work.

Hackney Writers Group

This is our third year running Hackney Writers Room, a collaboration with Hackney Empire. The project began with 3 weeks of outreach in local Hackney Schools led by Jammz and a member of the participation department. Over the three weeks a group of 30 young people in each school have written a short piece. A selection of these young people submitted their work and some were selected to take part in a week of development at Hackney Empire where they wrote a longer play and received dramaturgical support from Yolanda Mercy. The final pieces culminated in a performance of all the selected pieces by professional actors at both the Royal Court and Hackney Empire directed by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu.

Windrush Writers Group

As part of the Windrush day of celebration we held a writers group made up of 7 writers of Caribbean heritage led by Nicôle Lecky. The writers created 2 minute monologues inspired by the 7 films curated by Lynette Linton. They were performed around the Bar on the day of celebration and some of the writers were encouraged to perform their own work by Nicôle due to the nature of Superhoe & were directed by Jade Lewis. The passages were of really high quality and received really well on the day.

Queer Upstairs

We ran a writers group initially in response to Stonewall’s 60th anniversary, but the parameters of this shifted to being a celebration of queer stories as a central narrative on stage. A series of six, 15 minute pieces were shared on June 17th in the JTU. The work was curated by Mark Ravenhill and Hester Chillingworth who co-facilitated the writers group. The writers were:

• Nick Bruckman
• Hester Chillingworth
• Lettie Precious
• Iman Qureshi
• Rachael Young

Arts 4 Dementia

We partnered with Arts 4 Dementia to work with 5 people with dementia and their 5 carers to develop playwriting skills over 8 weeks. The group worked with Simon Longman and a member of the participation team, Ellie. They spent time responding to images and objects to create both fictional and personal stories. The group will end the project having each (both carer and participant) written a short play.