Hartfield Community Play and Children’s Book Festival 2012Ashdown Forest, Hartfield, East Sussex
May – July 2012
In partnership with a local voluntary steering group, Claque is planning to produce a community play and launch a new Children’s Book Festival in Hartfield, the home of A.A. Milne. The community play will be a catalyst to attract a wider audience to the village and will draw in and train local volunteers in arts project management so they can sustain the festival as a regular event.
With initial support from an Arts Council England Grants for Arts award, our fundraising and sponsorship campaign continues. If you can see yourself supporting any of the following events with financial aid or with help in kind, please get in touch. We’re looking for sponsors for authors, a building space to design and produce the play, bell tents and marquees for the festival and money to pay for professional designers and directors. To find out what longlasting benefits your support would bring, click here now or contact liz@claquetheatre.com
Storyfest – Hartfield Children’s Book Festival
Storyfest is a new two day event over 12 - 13 May 2012. It will be a highpoint in a series of workshops and events leading to the community play in June. Our aim is to create opportunities for new readers and for children and adults who love books to meet authors and illustrators. We will offer workshops that have something for everyone – where younger children can paint and draw while older children and adults can try their hand at creative writing. The festival will be launched with a paper costume parade down the high street. Events will include a festival exhibition of the area’s literary heritage; public readings and workshops by established children’s authors and illustrators; a story fair with bookstalls and a programme of creative workshops and performances by professional storytellers, singers and puppeteers as well as The North Pole Expotition – a guided theatrical walk visiting Christopher Robin’s special places.
The Community Play
The play will run for twelve nights from 25th June – 7th July 2012. Hartfield History Society and a growing number of local people are working with Claque to gather recorded interviews and historical research to inform the play, which will be written by Jon Oram. The process involves:
Public Soundings – to identify contemporary issues.
Research Meetings – to decide the stories, people and periods of history to explore.
Drama Searches – to dramatically improvise the researched material.
In the three months leading to performances, a professional theatre team of technicians, designers, a director and a musical director will be resident in the village. We expect to have over a hundred performers all from the local community and hundreds more volunteers helping with all aspects of production, administration, fundraising and marketing. A design studio will be set up in the village for the three month production period for people to drop in, make costumes and build sets. The professional team will also run workshops in schools and organisations locally.
If you’d like take part of the Hartfield Community Play and Children’s Book Festival, please contact the steering group directly via www.hartfieldplay.co.uk