Working Parts

No limits for Autism welcomes new people for drama workshops in summer. At the end of July the No limits drama group will meet from 10:30 AM in the morning until 4:00 PM in the afternoon.   Each Friday from the 30 July through to the 3 September will be a workshop at the Coach house in Stourbridge, please contact Chris Morgan if you are interested in attending or would like to find out more.

Over the summer for six weeks the no limits group will choose and rehearse a new short play and aim to perform the show at the Sedgeley festival in September. Since October 2009 the drama group have been meeting each Friday for a couple of hours each week. You can see what they have been doing on their Facebook fan page, each week they are uploading an edited video of their rehearsal.

Here is an extract from the artist’s blog. Right now you can have a look at the video of their latest rehearsal. Before rehearsing the play Sherlock Holmes and the Aquilla diamond by Sid River, the group decided they wanted to work with scripts. We began with a workshop using over 50 A3 idiot boards with lines from various plays. Two actors were asked to improvise with the idiot boards, reading lines, held up to the actors by the non-performing members of the group. This worked well and towards the end the non-performing members became mesmerised by the creative play leaving just a couple of people to prompt the actors with lines from random plays.
http://www.vimeo.com/11899258

Clearly, this was a switch from the workshops involving improvisation that we had done before. They involved objects as prompts. Using words was not for everyone, and distanced members of the group, from the central activity. For others there is a sense that using a script is a progression a tangible achievement. We found the spoof Sherlock Holmes play randomly by searching on the Internet for short funny scripts. We tried it once and it worked. We found the characters we would play by switching roles and seeing which ones stuck, Stephen outward arrogance suited the character of Holmes. Vicky loud one minute and quiet the next suited the dual role of thief disguised as servant. Sir Vince appeal is his enthusiasm which perfectly suits the role of Watson, who like people with aspergers syndrome takes every word said literally for example in the spoof script, Holmes says, “call me a cab, Watson”, Watson replies, “your a cab.”

The challenge for the summer is to find a new script, which the actors can find to be as much fun. The project is funded through an awards for all lottery grant, the use of the arts to help young people with Autism was supported by Working Parts in 2009. Have a listen to the audio work about the experience of autism as a young person on their podcast site. (You need quick time on your computer to hear this site)