Refugees, LGBTQ youths, grandmothers from former mining villages – they may look the furthest removed from stuffy thespian-types you could imagine, but they’re about to tread the boards performing Brecht with the National Theatre.
There are really only two things this energetic bunch of 100 people have in common – they’re all first-time actors who live in Doncaster.
In other respects, they are very different, but that is the point of the Doncastrian Chalk Circle – a musical running throughout the bank holiday weekend at Doncaster’s Cast theatre, also featuring EastEnders and West End star John Partridge along with other professional actors and musicians.
“There are people who just would not have met any other way. Their paths would not have crossed,” said Sharon Wilson, a manager at the charity Changing Lives, which helps refugees and asylum seekers to access education, information and culture in Doncaster. She came along to support refugee women to get involved and ended up joining the cast herself.
Pete Hutchison, another of the first-time actors, said: “It’s very inclusive and very diverse.”
As well as the 70 local actors, there are 30 cameos from local performance groups, including a drag queen and a colliery band.
The partnership between the National Theatre and Cast is an adaptation of the Caucasian Chalk Circle, by the German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht, originally a political tale about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than the wealthy biological parents.
“This is a story about an unconventional family that’s put together – and in our version, a same-sex relationship and a really positive adoption story – in the context of big political questions about who gets what and why and what justice looks like, and who gets access to it,” said director James Blakey.
The cast spent most evenings in July and August preparing for their debut, and by the time dress rehearsals came around, the group – in an area with a traditionally low participation in arts – was tight-knit and full of enthusiasm, excitement and passion.
“It’s a real, beautiful eclectic range of people aged between four and 85 in our production at the moment, of many different countries of origin, of many different body types and abilities,” Blakey said. “Everyone – and that’s the team, as well as the company – are leaping a barrier in order to be here in some way.”
He said the success of the project had come through “shared values and shared purpose” among people from a whole host of organisations across Doncaster.
“I think what’s really key to its success in this city is that spirit between those organisations wanting to work together on behalf of their members, which isn’t true of everywhere in my experience,” he said.
Members of the cast were recruited through workshops, some of which involved going into organisations in Doncaster and the surrounding areas and pitching the idea to occasionally sceptical groups.
Blakey said: “We designed a workshop programme, and then everyone who’s taken part regularly in the workshops is offered an opportunity to come and take a part in the show.”
The impact on the individuals involved has been enormous. “This has been something just unbelievable,” said Sandra Galloway, a 78-year-old retired nurse who put her name down on a whim after the show’s producers visited her befriending group.
“I came and I thought, ‘What am I letting myself in for?’ and that was one of the best days of my life,” said Galloway, who has an MBE for campaigning for the victims of CJD.
She added: “It’s made a real difference to me. I’m doing something out of context with what I’ve normally been doing. I’ve met some wonderful people and there are friendships that are going to last well after this show.”
