Dictation

A new play by Mike Kenny
Directed by Claudette Bryanston
Designed by Jane Linz Roberts
In association with Plymouth Theatre Royal

About the production

A Greek Tragedy with an Urban Soundtrack.  It starts at dawn and ends at dusk…

Dictation was a new play for 14-17 year olds based on the ancient tragedy of Antigone. In the context of a Comprehensive School somewhere in Britain not far into the future, it looks at Sophocles’ concerns about what it means to be an individual; how to know when the rules are right and the measures of success are just.  It invites us to reflect on what a true measure of success really is.  There are some chilling discoveries.  In the current education climate of testing overload, creativity is increasingly under pressure in the curriculum.  Dictation highlights the stifling results of narrowing the education remit in order to achieve set targets.

Each performance was preceded by a four day workshop and rehearsal period in a local school or performing arts college or in a venue with a youth group. During this time, a team of young people experimented with the text and soundscape and improvise under the guidance of the Actor/Workshop Leaders and the Director. The young people took centre stage and central parts, also providing the chorus who comment on the action as it developed. For many, the public performance/s in the venue was their first experience of performing with professional actors in a professional space. Each performance is unique. The actors worked alongside specially formed companies of local young performers, incorporating their energy, creativity and distinctive voices into the final production.

Classworks Theatre commissioned Mike Kenny to write this play to incorporate young people into major roles, in order to develop the model established during the Company’s successful 6 month tour of Edward Bond’s play The Children. Theatre Royal Plymouth showed early interest in being associated with the production and it is one of the first projects to come out of their award-winning new Production and Education Centre, TR2.

With thanks to

The Earl and Countess of Wessex Charitable Trust, The Peggy Ramsay Foundation, Piggott Print, Arts Council of England, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Cambridge County Council