WHERE DOES THE WORD ‘CLAQUE’ COME FROM?

The origins of the word ‘Claque’ come from the French word ‘to clap’. The Claquer were an organised body of people who, either for hire or from other motives, banded together to applaud or deride a performance and thereby attempt to influence the audience, especially during competitions. As an institution they date back to ancient Greece. Under the Roman Empire, Claquers were common in the law courts as well as the theatre. Their popularity grew during the 16th century in France through a poet called Jean Daurat. He would buy a number of tickets to a performance of one of his own plays and freely distribute them to people who promised to clap, laugh or cry in the appropriate places. By the 18th century, an office in Paris was set-up solely for the supply of Claquers. Applauders could be hired; the Ticklers, who made people laugh and the Commissaires, who learned the script so they could tell people in the audience the good parts that were about to be performed. They would usually work under an elected leader a ‘Chef de Claque’, whose duty was tostart the demonstration of approval or disapproval, depending what they were hired to do. For us, Claquers are our group of friends and supporters who subscribe to our membership scheme and help keep community plays happening all over the country.

WHERE DID THE IDEA OF THE COMMUNITY PLAY COME FROM?

Already a well established playwright of such plays as ‘The Knack’ and ‘The Sport of My Mad Mother’, Ann Jellicoe shaped the principles of the community play in the late 1970′s. In 1978, Ann asked to write a play for her children’s school in Lyme Regis, Dorset. It evolved into something quite different from the usual school play. It was large scale, included people from all sections of the town, was based upon historical research of the area by local people and was animated by a team of theatre professionals. Ann had, quite by chance, stumbled on a unique formula and in so doing had created what has since become known as ‘The Community Play’. The following year Colway Theatre Trust was formed as a vehicle for exploring and developing this innovative style of theatre. Ann Jellicoe’s work attracted the best of British writers including David Edgar and Howard Barker and her immense contribution is evident in that her founding principles and values remain the bedrock of the company’s work today and remains an influence worldwide.

In 1982, Jon Oram started work as Ann’s assistant on the Sherborne Community Play. He directed two plays independently and co-directed ‘Entertaining Strangers’ with Ann Jellicoe before becoming the Artistic Director of Colway Theatre in 1985.

Today the company is of international standing and Jon Oram’s reputation and experience in community plays is without parallel having written, produced or directed over 30 productions. The work has continued to attract leading writers such as Arnold Wesker, Peter Terson, Nick Darke and David Cregan. The process is constantly evolving as it explores new methods to involve people in creating challenging issue-based plays unique to their community and developing the concept of the Social Actor. The plays implicate the audience in the drama and have a distinctive visual style. Claque play projects have been produced in Europe, North America and the length and breadth of England. In 2008, Jon Oram and Claque were given the Otto Castillo award in New York for their contribution to political theatre.

WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA OF A CLAQUE COMMUNITY PLAY?

There are 13 key criteria:

1. Claque advocates ‘inclusiveness’ & seeks to draw in as broad a cross section of people as possible.
2. We practice equal right of access and participation from all sections of society irrespective of race, religion, politics, age or disability.
3. Whilst we engage in activities that target specific consumers, the aim is to draw people towards participation in the wider community.
4. Claque is committed to community ownership; engaging people in all areas of the process.
5. The play is a culmination of a purposeful arts programme over a minimum time period of eighteen months.
6. There is guidance and commitment from an experienced team of theatre practitioners, who facilitate and encourage rather than dictate.
7. The play, written by a ‘quality writer’, is found through a process by which the community becomes better informed of itself.
8. The writer creates a script that is directly related to the lives of the people within the community.
9. The play, whilst capable of being politically and morally tough should equally become an honest, shared act of celebration.
10. The performance incorporates a style that includes a role for the audience within the performance.
11. The process encourages a commitment to develop and sustain future activities. The process assumes that individual creativeness, if not already evident, is latent and only waiting to be released.
12. The process enables people, in a safe atmosphere, to reach their fullest potential.
13. The play not only develops participation in the arts but also encourages new audience to experience contemporary work of high quality.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

1. They give people a sense of identity and ‘contact’ with the place in which they live.
2. The play helps to relieve the sense of alienation that many people can feel.
3. They strengthen and widen horizons, set new standards, stimulate ideas and open windows in the mind. Individuals’ potential is stretched.
4. Existing skills are developed and new ones explored, the community becomes aware of its range of skills and learns to respect others’ ideas.
5. People learn to explore common ground and develop group problem solving skills.
6. The community rediscovers the joy of co-operative participation and becomes bonded in the pursuit of achieving collective goals.
7. They demonstrate that art and the idea of celebration is fundamental to the growth of a healthy society.
8. By receiving the idea of the play, a community begins to accept a responsibility for its own cultural development.
9. They encourage a community to make a greater investment into the future because the individual feels more empowered and effective.
10. The scale of the play touches the lives of hundreds of people. The play absorbs people who naturally participate and reaches those who don’t.
11. The play breaks down cliques by drawing everyone together in a new, wider and inclusive initiative.
12. They are a great leveller – by demonstrating everyone has a valuable contribution to make preconceptions and prejudices are broken down.
13. It stimulates a healthy community life by developing rapid and easy communication and a feeling of mutual support.
14. It culminates in a play that is high profile. There is a kudos attached to them that helps restore flagging community spirit.
15. They allow people to feel a sense of pride in themselves and where they live.
16. It closes the gap between professional and amateur theatre expectations. Standards of local theatre are raised.
17. It brings theatre back to its roots and ordinary people into the front line of contemporary theatre.
18. It humbles the professional by giving them the experience of working with real people striving to reach the best within themselves.
19. Not least they give enormous pleasure, and special memories. Many people experience a new lease of life and form lasting friendships.

HOW DO YOU PLAN A COMMUNITY PLAY?

Starting Up Months: 1- 3 Months

Projects start with identifying and gathering together a volunteer set-up committee. They undertake a feasibility study to assess the support or otherwise for the play. The study looks for potential venues, help-in-kind, costs and funding. The findings of the study together with recommendations about aims and objectives are presented to a public meeting and the community vote on whether they want a play or not. A community play project does not happen without a strong sign of community support. If the community decide to go ahead they distribute volunteer forms.

Planning Months: 4- 6 Months

A steering committee of local volunteers is formed. They take responsibility for the management of the project. We want to empower people to organise and manage their own project so that the skills they learn help to enable future work once the play is over. Claque is on hand to give advice and support. We also have a manual, simulation community play training game and draft administration documents to help with the process. Other teams or sub committees may be formed to take responsibility for the varied aspects of the specially designed programme. These have, in the past, included research, fundraising, publicity and events.

The cost of the project is determined by what the community can afford. The feasibility study will have assessed how much in-kind support and money is available, and from where. The majority of the money usually comes from outside the community through Trusts, Arts Councils, Lottery and Sponsorship. The community then determines its own fundraising targets and box office potential. Only when a true idea of the scale of the project is understood can anything be planned. Claque supplies lighting and sound equipment, design workshop tools, desktop publishing, audio visual aids (camera, video), display material and public liability insurance. These services together with experience can dramatically cut costs, save time and improve the quality of the work.

Community Arts Programme: 7-13 Months

An arts, cultural or heritage programme accompanies the lead up to a community play. This parallel project is especially designed to respond to the unique needs of the host community. In the past parallel projects have included lantern parades celebrating diversity, an outdoor photographic exhibition, mobile recording studios to record oral history, festivals and art installations. During this period the play is being researched and developed collaboratively between local people and an experienced Playwright through meetings, workshops and chance encounters. We run Soundings and Drama Searches using techniques to discover and debate possible ideas and examine their contemporary relevance. Fundraising activities and events raise awareness of the project, constantly encouraging more and more people to participate.

Casting and Play Reading: Month 14

The majority of the money should have now been raised and the play written. There should also be a substantial number of volunteers on the database. We always hold a public reading of the play followed by inclusive casting. It is a policy of Claque that anyone wanting a performance role gets one. Casts are typically around between 100 and 130 people, sometimes more, seldom less.

The Production Period: 15-17 Months

About 12 weeks prior to the agreed first night of the play, a professional theatre team becomes resident in the community. The size of the team and the length of time they are resident depends on budget and needs. The team usually consists of a Director, Play Co-ordinator, Designer, Design Assistant, Production Manager and a Musical Director but can include a Stage Manager, Choreographer, Lighting Designer and Filmmaker. Rehearsals begin and the design studio and play office open to the public. People are invited to help build sets, props and make costumes with the guidance of the professional theatre designers. Workshops are taken into schools and other establishments. The whole town can become come involved with a new creativity.

The Play: Month 18

The plays themselves are presented in the dynamic and visual promenade theatre style for which Claque is famous. The space, be it school, barn, church, castle, warehouse or tent is transformed with a series of stages around the circumference. The action of the play swirls all around and through the standing audience. The community cast have been transformed into ‘Social Actors’, trained to implicate the audience in the drama.

Afterwards

Some 2 months after the play we hold a post-play meeting to encourage and support the community in setting up a group to develop and manage new initiatives. The enthusiasm engendered by a community play, if harnessed, can create and sustain arts and cultural events long after the play is over. In the past communities have created arts centres, started festivals, built up choirs, bands, drama societies, politicised and organised themselves in stopping unwanted housing developments, rescued declining areas and preserved cultural traditions. This is made all the more possible when the original concept is one of community ownership. Take a look at the Camden Road Education, Arts, Theatre and Enterprise (CREATE) group as an example, which evolved from The Vanishing Elephant.

HOW CAN I ORGANISE A PLAY FOR MY COMMUNITY?

If you want a play for your community, want to know more or would like Claque’s support, advice or input write to or e-mail us. We will usually ask you to gather together a few leading drivers and shakers in the community and arrange a date for us to come and meet with them. Should the group be interested we would then negotiate the way forward. Claque rarely asks for a fee until there is some success with funding approaches although we do ask for the cost of incurred expenses by mutual agreement.

You don’t need to have had any arts or management experience; neither do you need an excuse to have a Community Play other than you feel it would significantly benefit the community. Just contact us to register your interest here.