Narratives of Empathy and Resilience

Narratives of Empathy and Resilience engaged a diverse range of freelance artists who spent three months collaborating and creating theatre for young audiences, from birth to teenagers and young adults.

What started as a public call-out in March 2021 (that yielded over 600 applicants) quickly progressed to a collective of 17 plus dynamic artists, from a range of disciplines at different stages of their creative careers, who collaborated to create nine powerful scratch performances for different age ranges for the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) sector.

At the end of the making phase of the project in July 2021, due to COVID restrictions, the performances were shared among the creatives and Half Moon team. The day provoked conversations around inclusion and representation, as well as reflecting back on the under-pinning themes of the project – empathy and resilience leaving the artists inspired and committed to including young audiences in their artistic practices. Although we were unable to welcome delegates in-person, the showcase and Q&As that followed each piece, were professionally filmed.

To bring closure to the R and D phase of the project, all the filmed performances and Q&As were shared via Zoom to the wider TYA and arts sector at the culminative digital showcase on 23 and 24 September 2021. This was accompanied by a series of provocation sessions where the artists and delegates debated the issues raised by the work.

Part of our Exchange for Change artform development programme aiming to develop new plays for young people,  Narratives of Empathy and Resilience is a continuation of our long-term ambition to create stories that reflect our diverse community, as well as support underrepresented artists in developing their practice.

Meet the artists on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive Read the artist reflections on Stages of Half Moon

Introduction video

Behind the Scenes

We charted this exciting journey with some behind the scenes content of our artists’ creative journey, including a series of blogs, photos and videos.

BLOG 1: Getting started BLOG 2: Meet the artists BLOG 3: Meet the artists, part 2 VLOG 1: Empathy artists first meet VLOG 2: Meet the ensemble BLOG 4: What we’ve got up to so far VLOG 3: Developing concepts BLOG 5: Rehearsal photos BLOG 6: Empathy and resilience showcase 2021 BLOG 7: The Finale

Narratives of Empathy and Resilience performances

Click on the buttons below to find out more about individual Narratives of Empathy and Resilience shows.

10-In-The-Bed

for ages 3-7

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Angel

for advisory ages 7+

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The Bench

for advisory ages 8+

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Boys Will Be Boys

for advisory ages 9+

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Daytime Deewane

for advisory ages 12+

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Flat Lands

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

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Hot Orange

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

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Loop.In.Doors

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

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Psychic Babies

for ages 1-3

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10-In-The-Bed

for ages 3-7

Powerfully moving and playful at the same time, 10-In-The-Bed features four characters who each in turn are threatened with being kicked out of the ‘too-small’ bed, but who are saved when their unique quality is identified, and with the realisation that their loss would be detrimental to everyone’s well-being and safety. There are sharks, pirates and funny fishes with flappy fins; there are damp walls, a dripping tap and the institutional voice beyond the door telling them to ‘be quiet’. 10-In-The-Bed explores urban deprivation, with the imaginative play that children enact serving as a metaphor for games that serve as a route of escape from their harsh reality of poverty.

10-In-The-Bed was commissioned by Half Moon as Ten in the Bed. The show is in development and will be touring the UK in 2024.

Cast and Creative Team

with KENNETH OMOLE as Naz and Pringle, and JOHN OMOLE as Iggy
featuring the voice of ANDROULLA CONSTANTINOU as Woman

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Angel

for advisory ages 7+

Food is Angel’s place for adventure and imagination: she loves pigs in blankets at Christmas, and the all-day buffet on holiday in Spain is a place of fascination and experimentation. As those around her start to comment on the size of the portions on her plate and a healthy eating regime at school means she can’t eat what she wants anymore, she starts to ask questions.

Angel explores young people’s relationship with food and diet cultures, seeking to challenge societal expectations, stigmas and negative stereotypes surrounding female body image.

Cast and Creative Team

with JADE DOWSETT-ROBERTS as Angel

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

The Bench

for advisory ages 8+

Gentle, reflective and powerfully understated, The Bench explores the importance and beauty of inter-generational friendships, when two different generations unpack their feelings and stories and find a metaphysical connection through the act of building a simple park bench.

With child-like visuals and a soundtrack rooted in the world of traditional Armenian music, The Bench uses the story of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the death marches into the Syrian Desert inflicted upon ethnic Armenians by the then Ottoman Empire. The piece depicts a powerful exploration of inherited trauma and resonates with contemporary forced migration.

The Bench has been commissioned by Half Moon and is being radically reinvented as a piece for 13+, exploring the same themes surrounding the Armenian genocide and generational trauma for a teenage audience. The show will tour in 2025.

Cast and Creative Team

with MICHAEL IRVING as Andranik, and PETER LOSASSO as Jack
and featuring the voices of ANDROULLA CONSTANTINOU as Woman and GEOFF ARTHUR as Jack’s Father

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Boys Will Be Boys

for advisory ages 9+

Boys Will Be Boys explores how and why young men can, from an early age, be subjected to toxic masculine experiences that can have negative impact upon their own development and the lived experiences of others, especially women.

Boys Will Be Boys challenges the young audience to unpack the origins of adult gender violence from seemingly harmless playground games, peer pressure and influential societal role models, especially among family members. Using poetry and exquisitely beautiful storytelling, the piece leaves the audience asking questions about how their own behaviours and interactions can have huge impact upon others.

Boys Will Be Boys underwent development in early 2022 through workshops with KS3 school groups in St Helens, in partnership with WonderArts. Both Half Moon and WonderArts are seeking appropriate pathways to fund a full commission and tour of this peice.

Cast and Creative Team

Performer and writer | ZOHAB ZEE KHAN
Composer and Sound Designer | JAMES PERRY
Assistant Director | RORI ENDERSBY
Trainee TYA Producer | ESTHER RENNAE WALKER
Trainee Dramaturge (Spoken Word) | LORI ZAKARIYYA KING
Director | CHRIS ELWELL
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager | SAMUEL BAKER
Project Dramaturge (Spoken Word) and Dramaturgical Trainer | ROSEMARY HARRIS

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Daytime Deewane

for advisory ages 12+

Daytime Deewane explores the beauty and struggle of living with a multi-faceted, multi-cultural identity as a 15 year old teenage boy in 1990s Britain. Puberty, inter-generational conflict and spirituality are explored through a British Muslim Pakistani lens, observing how a young man who occupies many spaces searches for harmony. Inspired by the daytime raves of 1990s British Asian culture and using poetry framed within a live DJ soundtrack, the piece joyfully celebrates a generation who carved out space for a ‘British Asian’ sub-culture. 30 years on in 2021, Daytime Deewane brings audiences insightful contemporary resonances to explore.

Daytime Deewane was commissioned by Half Moon and became a 60 minute show for ages 13+ and adult audiences, completing a tour of UK venues in October 2022. Daytime Deewane writer, Azan Ahmed, won the Off West End Offies Award for Writing for Theatre for Young Audiences. The show was nominated for two more Offies (Performance: Ryan Rajan Mal and Omi Mantri, and Original Music/Sound: SOMATIC). In January 2023 Daytime Deewane was also nominated in the Everything Theatre Fringe Theatre Awards, or Etties for short, for Best Theatre for Young Audiences.

Cast and Creative Team

and JONNY KHAN as Farhan
featuring the voices of AZAN AHMED as MC A-Jazz and Farhan’s Baba and ESTHER RENNAE WALKER as Girl

Find out more about the R&D on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive Find out more about the touring production on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Flat Lands

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

Flat Lands is a multi-media spoken word show about friendship, risk taking and BMX bikes, told from the perspective of an older, benevolent but often socially invisible housing estate street cleaner. 11 year-old Leo has been kicked out of school and spends his days on his bike, showing off to the older teenagers on the estate and causing trouble where he can. In Jay and Rico, who are struggling themselves to navigate the demands of day-to-day existence, Leo finds two role models and a chance to make choices of his own. Flat Lands aims to explore the context of tender male friendships and communal responsibility. The piece highlights the resilience, joy and beauty of communities who are often overlooked in theatre-making.

Flat Lands was commissioned as a full length play by Filament in South Devon. Now called DIRT, the show is being developed to be staged in October 2023.

Cast and Creative Team

Performer and Writer | TOM STOCKLEY
Sound and Video Designer | JAKE WALKER
Assistant Director | STEPHEN BAILEY
Trainee TYA Producer | ESTHER RENNAE WALKER
Trainee Dramaturge (Spoken Word) | LORI ZAKARIYYA KING
Director | CHRIS ELWELL
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager | SAMUEL BAKER
Project Dramaturge (Spoken Word) and Dramaturgical Trainer | ROSEMARY HARRIS

Featuring the voices of SONNY BUNKER of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Jay, BRODIE BUNKER of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Rico, FREDDY WADSWORTH of Half Moon’s Youth Theatre as Leo and ANDROULLA CONSTANTINOU as Leo’s Mum

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Hot Orange

for advisory ages 13+ and young adults

Hot Orange is an exploration of friendship, reconstructed memories and the liberating power of playtime imagination, as two teenage girls from very different worlds, meet again after 8 years. Set in their childhood playground basketball court, Hot Orange interrogates childhood intimacy and the moment when you fall in love: feelings that are shattered by the darker reactions of others.

Using spoken word, framed within an evocative soundscape, the piece presents audiences with a powerful and honest contemporary narrative of queer love in childhood.

Hot Orange was commissioned by Half Moon and will be touring the UK in November 2023 in an immersive format style.

Cast and Creative Team

Find out more about the R&D on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive Find out more about the touring production

Loop.In.Doors

for advisory 13+ and young adults

Loop.In.Doors explores social anxiety as an experience common to both transgender and cisgender people. It uses the everyday experience of getting ready to leave the house to look at how people are judged in public, and the impact of social norms on our well-being.

Framed within a live DJ soundtrack and using spoken word, Loop.In.Doors is an evocative and beautifully crafted piece, which challenges form through exploring the sound and musicality of language and finding new phrasing and physical interpretation. At its heart, it asks to consider that everyone has something to gain from trans liberation.

The piece is being developed by the artist independently of Half Moon.

Cast and Creative Team

Performer and Writer | TOMARA GARROD
DJ on Stage, Sound and Video Designer | JAKE WALKER
Assistant Director | STEPHEN BAILEY
Trainee TYA Producer | ESTHER RENNAE WALKER
Director | CHRIS ELWELL
Lighting Design, Production and Technical Manager | SAMUEL BAKER

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

Psychic Babies

for ages 1-3

Psychic Babies explores rites of passage, rituals, the wisdom we are born with, carry with us, have adopted from ancestors we have never met and the legacy we in turn leave behind.

With pulsating sound presented live on stage by a DJ artist, framed within evocative visuals, this theatrical and visceral performance uses semi-improvised movement and limited language to challenge audiences about stereotypes of beauty and motherhood in work for the very young.

Psychic Babies was initially inspired by those older homeless women who sleep on the streets in urban environments.

Cast and Creative Team

Find out more on our Stages of Half Moon digital archive

The Narratives of Empathy and Resilience programme is a continuation of Half Moon’s long-term ambition to create stories that reflect our diverse community, as well as support under-represented artists in developing their practice aiming to create new bodies of work for the TYA sector from artists new to the sector.

The Narratives of Empathy and Resilience programme was funded by an Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant.