spring outreach 2011

The Passion

Port Talbot

April 2011

2011 saw wgytc continue its OUTREACH work, with the Company being lucky enough to be invited to be part of the National Theatre of Wales production of ‘The Passion’.

Directed by Michael Sheen and Wildworks, the students worked alongside professional performers and community leaders to create parts of this internationally acclaimed production.  The rehearsals were held at Glan Afan Comprehensive School and encouraged new members from Neath and Port Talbot to access the staff and students of the current Company.  The devised work was performed as part of the main performance and several members were chosen to play additional roles in key scenes alongside the core ‘Passion’ company.

The presence of the Company was visible in all aspects of the production with a large proportion of those involved being wgytc alumni.

As Michael Sheen himself said, when asked to comment on the importance of the Company to the project:

“The Passion project, which will bring the area and it’s communities into both the national and international spotlight, is a direct product of the influence of wgytc. The emphasis on working creatively as a team, drawing on the experiences of ordinary people and our common stories, being true to our environment and celebrating our community,  drawing on many varied areas of expertise and joining together in a common cause, empowering those who too often feel marginalized or overlooked. All these are things that became important to me because of my time in wgytc, and The Passion is suffused with them. They are also values that would have stood me in equally good stead no matter what career path I had chosen. It will be a sorry state of affairs if, at the very moment that this area and it’s rich cultural and community life is being celebrated for all the world to see, with newspapers writing about it’s unprecedented ambition, documentaries recording it’s historic scale and breadth, people travelling from around the globe to witness it, that at that very moment, the organisations and support that have given rise to it in the first place such as the wgytc are being seen as superficial, superfluous and unworthy of existing”.