Erin McGee, our Company Administrator and Young Quines Producer, reflects on our recent Young Quines sharing and the last year of workshops.
Our second year of Young Quines has officially come to an end, and we celebrated two years of work with an incredible sharing for friends and families of the project last week, on the 27th June.
Young Quines is our youth theatre for young women and other marginalised genders in Fife with hubs in Leven and Kirkcaldy. These groups gather once a week on a Tuesday with young people aged 14-18. We also have our Younger Quines group in Leven, for 9-13 year old participants.
We started this project during the pandemic and it took a little while to find our feet, and build relationships. However, last week it all came together and really paid off. This was our very first sharing where we brought together all of our groups and had to chance to finally show the communities of Fife what we have been up to.
The project is co-designed and our Creative Practitioners and Emerging Creative Practitioners do a really great job at finding the ways the young people want to participate. For example, any of our young people prefer the backstage “behind the scenes” areas of theatre as opposed to the acting and that means we have talented future stage managers, costume designers, and even future Emerging Creative Practitioners in the making. This meant our sharing featured not only short plays but poetry, an art installation, a Q&A session hosted by our Associate Director of Engagement, Beth Godfrey, and a Wes Anderson inspired short film (which we have a TikTok trend to thank for).
After the sharing, we had the chance to chat with the community over pizza and got to hear what they thought and we’re grateful to share some of that feedback:
- “super impressive, articulate, thoughtful, essential”
- “keep up the great work Leven! Absolutely amazing, seen a big difference in my child”
- “fantastic! welcoming! supportive! accommodating!”
- “gives parents peace and understanding”
- “helps them be just who they are”
It was lovely to see so many people (really, we had to bring out more chairs!) showing up and supporting their young people. I can’t wait to start up again in September, and rest assured we already have some exciting plans in the works for next year!
