Jefny Ashcroft: Drama Specialist
Forthcoming events/performances
I am currently working on a Heritage Lottery Fund project for Sandwell Archives.
How d'you know that? will be a short play (performed in the Archives' search-room) about the politically explosive events surrounding the 1964 election and Malcolm X's subsequent visit to Smethwick.
Designed for older secondary students and the local community, the play will be performed in Black History Month, October 2012. It will also be filmed and it is hoped to premiere this in February 2013.
I am also talking to two other local authorities, this time about possible public events in their parks. Watch this space for more details.
Finally I am writing an Arts Council bid for a short comic play to be performed, hopefully, in Wolverhampton this Autumn.
Recent performances:
Tales of old Bilston was a family-friendly storytelling session at Bilston Craft Gallery on September 3rd 2011. It was part of the Home of Metal season of events.
Dr Fraser and his amazing fossils - in March 2011, Wolverhampton Art Gallery ran half-day sessions for schools/Key Stage Two pupils using my short play about an energetic Victorian doctor and his passion for fossils.
Jonathan Wyatt, a highly-experienced Theatre In Education professional, played the good doctor. As he talked, Dr Fraser produced fossils from his bag for children to handle, ask questions about and draw. After the show children saw some of the large collection Fraser left to the Gallery.
We started it! is a new play for primary children (and families) about the origins of Wolverhampton Wanderers, at St Luke's school, in 1877.
It was performed at primary schools in the Blakenhall and All Saints areas of Wolverhampton, including St Luke's School, in September 2010, with a cast of professional actors (and me).
It was also performed at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, with the same cast, as a National Heritage Days 2010 event.
I also helped to organise a month-long companion exhibition, based on the founding of the Wolves in 1877, in Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
UPDATE We started it! was featured on the main, early evening, bulletin of Midlands Today on September 14th. The actors were shown kicking the ball around on the turf of the Molineux stadium and performing the play at St Luke's School.
The programme asked the reaction from pupils at the school. The ones broadcast were: "It started at our school, and I'm very proud of it.", "I thought it was fantastic. I hope we can see it again.", and "It was absolutely brilliant."
Stories in Stone has been a partnership in which I have worked with both Wolverhampton Museums and Art Galleries and Telford Culture Zone. Students from two secondary schools in Telford, Ercall Wood Technology College and Madeley Academy, have been looking at the buildings in the neighbourhood of their schools and responding to them.
The project has resulted in a short film which was shown along with an exhibition of art work created by the schools. Stories in Stone is also part of a larger project, Engaging Places, which is organised nationally by CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). The work I have done is part of the national exhibition which ran at Wolverhampton Art Gallery during July 2010 in tandem with a London exhibition in Greenwich.
In July 2010 I learnt that my Stories in Stone project with Madeley Academy had won first prize nationally among the CABE Engaging places projects.
Here is a complete listing of my previous plays which have been performed.