What Am I Doing?

To mark Open Theatre's 30th birthday, I will be raising money by doing a sponsored silence for 30 hours (over 2 days on 19th and 20th November). This will cover one day at work with the Open Theatre team, and one day with my 16 month old boy, Eli and his friends! I will only use my extremely limited Makaton skills, and my extremely entertaining physical theatre skills, to help me communicate with people!

Why A Sponsored Silence?

I have 2 main reasons for doing a sponsored silence... Firstly, at Open Theatre we specialise in non-verbal physical theatre, creatively connecting with others in ways other than using words. The second reason is that young people with learning disabilities are marginalised in society; their voices are not heard and valued in the same way as neurotypical young people.

By being silent for 30 hours I will be standing with those young people - raising money to enable them to have more creative opportunities and be recognised for the innately creative people that they are.

Why Open Theatre?

I have been working with Open Theatre for 6 years now and over that time I have seen for myself the impact that this company has, not only on the lives of the young people with learning disabilities that we work with, but on wider society, both regionally and nationally.

We work with over 1500 young people in special schools every single year. We need your help to support these young people in their next steps into adulthood. Your support will help to create new opportunities for young people with learning disabilities to take centre-stage through professional productions, via mentoring from established artists, training, networking opportunities, and more. Help us to nurture the next generation of role models for thousands of learning disabled young people in all areas of the arts. Help us make theatre accessible - for everyone...