Films, poetry and plays created at Young Writers’ Summer workshops
From thoughtful poetry and collage-making to a boisterous ten-minute play featuring an inflatable seagull and a film about a pun-loving alien, 45 children aged between 11 and 15, brought energy, ideas, and brilliant teamwork to three Young Writers’ workshops in the North East over the summer.
Immersed in creative environments, with industry professionals supporting them the young people were able to develop writing, performance, photography, film, and teamwork skills. And they all began to find their own signature voices and styles. Each workshop started with a vague idea which the young people took as a starting point to create their own fun, entertaining and thoughtful creations.
Snapshots of Summer was a poetry, collage and zine-making workshop led by poet Jasmine Plumpton, with support from Rue Collinge at The Word in South Shields. It was a fittingly dreamy three days reflecting on summers past and present and imaging future ones. The young people went out and about in South Shields taking photos of things and observing to inspire their creations. They combined their writing, poetry, and photography into collages to produce zines, and giant and mini postcards.
The Intergalactic Tourist Agency was a film-making workshop led by Sean McKenna, with support from Lucie Brownlee at the Baltic Campus at Gateshead College. The workshop led to the creation of a film which followed the landing of an alien with evil intentions. In the body of a Frenchman the alien would mesmerise his targets with his clever puns and then ‘disappear’ them, except for one girl who was immune to his charms! The participants wrote the script, performed, filmed, and edited the piece.
G.O.A.T Summer was a script-writing workshop led by scriptwriters Zoe Murtagh and Jamie Tansley at Live Theatre in Newcastle. Participants worked together to create a ten-minute play about the best summer ever. It was witty, energetic, with some light mocking of online influencers and the appearance of a large inflatable seagull. All of them took part in all the elements from scriptwriting to performing.
The young people produced highly original ideas and flourished as skilled creative professionals guided them to hone their ideas and entrusted to use technical equipment. Friendships were forged and creative partnerships formed as the young people were given the chance to be taken very seriously as artists, but with the maximum amount of fun.
