The Greyfriars Island Project - Homelessness – Northampton – Have your voice heard

Hummingbird Drama Productions Ltd announces that they will be working in partnership with the Hope Centre, Northampton, on a new theatre project. Through a process of research and development, they will develop a script that will help humanise, empower and raise awareness of people affected by homelessness in Northampton.

With clown and comedy support from Toby Park Artistic Director at Spymonkey, they will facilitate drama/clown workshops with the Hope Centre's service users and local school and college students. Helen Clifford, local theatre maker and producer of the Greyfriars Island Project explains that ‘these will be a safe and supportive environment for participants to feel empowered to share their perspectives and learn valuable skills whilst having lots of fun filled laughter!’

Helen adds ‘we want to hear from community groups and local businesses to be able to understand different perspectives on the homeless crisis.’

The content generated from the research will inform a script that will be developed in collaboration with Tom Fox, Artistic Director at Lamphouse Theatre and presented at a scratch in the Royal and Derngate Underground before being developed into a full production.

The future of the project will be to tour a production to secondary schools and colleges, community venues, small scale theatres and theatre fringe festivals.

Hummingbird Drama Productions Ltd are supported by Generate at the Royal & Derngate and have been awarded funding from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project grants, the Northamptonshire Community Foundation through the Constance Travis Endowment Fund, local writer Alan Moore and the David Laing Foundation to support the Greyfriars Island Project.

Rachel McGrath Grants Director/Deputy CEO at the Northamptonshire Community Foundation said: ‘The Foundation is delighted to have awarded Hummingbird Drama Productions Ltd funding to carry out a much needed project in their locality. We wish them every success in their endeavours by helping improve the quality of life for local communities.’

If you’d like to find out more information about our events and how you can get involved please follow our facebook page @GreyfriarsIslandProject, visit www.hummingbirddramaproducitons.org.uk or email [email protected]