National Theatre Wales Assembly events – taking theatre and discussion into the local community
National Theatre Wales Assembly events – taking theatre and discussion into the local community
By
Devinda De Silva
National Theatre Wales creates bold, invigorating theatre in the English language, rooted in Wales and with an international reach. Without a building of their own, in their first year they focused on creating a series of new productions, each one in a different location, many of them site specific: the Theatre Map of Wales. Being a non-building-based theatre company has enabled National Theatre Wales to focus their investment on the artistic programme and be freer and more versatile in the way they think and make theatre – the first year saw work created in taxis, nightclubs, houses, the beach and many other locations.
The Assembly is a theatre-debate event that runs alongside our main productions. It’s a platform for local artists and local people to respond, share and discuss their knowledge and understanding of a particular local issue. The event always works around a question or theme that is relevant to a place at that time and always comes from the community we are based in. It usually takes a few weeks of talking and listening to as many people as possible to find
the right question. We always enlist the help of local people to find the question and we work with them to find the
best way of doing this. They’ve set up stalls in town centres, gone out with a flipcam and videoed responses (which is
often shown as part of the performance), or just talked to friends and family.
