Launched March 2012
What Matters Now?
New short plays by professional playwrights commissioned by young people.What happens when young people commission a professional playwright to write about what's important to young people now? What happens when the playwright has less than a week to write - before the play goes live in front of the same young people, with professional actors?
Welcome to The Commissioners.
Throughout 2012 young people in schools will be joining forces with professional playwrights to commission short, rapid-response plays around the question ‘What Matters To You Now?’
The Commissioners begins with an encounter between a playwright and a group of young people, at the end of which the young people commission the playwright to return a few days later with a draft of a short play drawing on the encounter. In the second session, the young people respond to the first draft, acting as "dramaturgs", sending back for rewrite anything that misses the mark. Finally, Company of Angels stages the play, with professional actors, for the young people. After this, the script is handed over to the young people who helped created it, granting them rights to perform it themselves.
We’re going straight to young people, straight to the heart of their lives and giving them the creative control. Think you know about being young? Think again.
"The Commissioners project was a very worthwhile project for the students and one which they really enjoyed... This is an important process and one which I'm sure will encourage them in the future to search for meaning in a given text or think critically about the choices that have been made when seeing a finished play at the theatre." Ella Tate, Teacher, Notre Dame Secondary School.
Follow the action on Twitter: #TheCommissioners
Interview: STEP spoke with Company of Angels about The Commissioners. Read the interview here.
Participating Schools, March-July 2012: Commissioners 1: Notre Dame Secondary School, London SE1. "Park Bench" by Shereen Jasmin Phillips
Commissioners 2: Southwark College, London SE1. "Holes" by Steven Bloomer
Commissioners 3: Globe Academy (Primary), London SE1. Writer: Adam Barnard
Commissioners 4: Bessemer Grange Primary School, London SE1. Writer: Jason Sherman
Commissioners 5&6: Highgate Primary School, London N6
Commissioners 7: Globe Academy (Secondary), London SE1
July 13-15: Selected Commissioners plays to be performed at the Latitude Festival.
Commissioners playwrights will be a mix of exciting young talent and established and international voices. Some of our first writers:
Steven Bloomer is an Associate Artist at The Factory and author of Boiling Frogs (Southwark Playhouse), You Were After Poetry (HighTide Festival) and Bugs (Wilderness Festival). He won the Adrienne Bennham award in 2009.
Shereen Jasmin Phillips wrote for the Old Vic New Voices 24 Hour Plays last year; her first full length play Hidden has just been staged at Oval House and she is mentored by Kwame Kwei Armah.
Jason Sherman is one of Canada's most admired playwrights, winner of multiple awards, whose work has been staged across North America and Europe including productions in London at the Orange Tree and Finborough Theatres.
Produced by Company of Angels.
If you are interested in writing, acting in or directing for The Commissioners, we may have openings. Find out more.
