Drama Workshops
Mustard Tree Drama Group meet every Wednesday at 4:00- 5.30pm upstairs at Mustard Tree. The group is ran by Rosarie and Fran and during the sessions there are games, drama exercises and acting.
If you would like to join the group please speak to Janet Wong on 0161 228 7331 or email office@mustardtree.co.uk.
Or you can contact Fran and Rosarie on 07749110154.
Past Performances
Race For Life
25th May 2011
In the Race For Life those who train and work hard win gold and silver but what about those who are left behind? Those who struggle with addiction to drugs or alcohol, those that have no roof over their head and those who get stuck with the label of ‘waster’ or ‘junky’ that they just can’t seem to shake off. Race For Life focuses on these stories and what happens when they try to change and sometimes don’t succeed.
This was Mustard Tree Drama Group’s first ever full-scale production with a stage, lights, camera and plenty of action. On the 25th May at Salford Arts Theatre the group performed ‘Race For Life’ to an audience of around fifty-five people. The performers were fantastic! They were focused, gave the performance energy and had clear characterisations. The audience really enjoyed the production and commented afterwards how great the whole performance had been.
International Women’s Day
Thursday 10th March 2011
I remember…
In the build up to International Women’s Day we started a women’s only drama group who would perform on the day. This was a collaboration of ideas between the women’s arts and crafts group and the drama. As ever things sometimes don’t always turn out how they are planned. However in the group we worked on intimate storytelling. We made stories up, looked at stories that were important to us and looked at personal life stories. In the end we created a collection of these stories varying from the creation of the world to a woman leaving Africa to look for a new life in the UK. We also shared what we remember as important and how that changes at different stages in our lives. We were very grateful to all the women that contributed to the stories even though some of them could not make the performance. We were also grateful for those that did perform even though it was something completely new and daunting they were incredibly brave!
Kite
Performed 15th December 2010
Ryan Stone, the man who had everything.
He was rich, ran his own business, had a wife, family and even a Ferrari. Mr Stone had money to burn, or so he thought. One too many trips to the casino and soon all the money that was to pay for the cars, the holiday, the mortgage, his sons education was gambled away. When his money went his family and friends soon followed and Ryan was left with nothing and nowhere to go. He ended up on the streets, cold, hungry and alone. One day someone told him about a soup run that might be able to help him out. He went along and someone there told him about other services he could access. People who would help him. People he could rely on.
The cast worked very hard for this performance. It all started with the story of Job from the Bible and the question what would a modern story of Job look like? The group created the character of Ryan Stone and devised the scenes that showed his story from being a man who had everything to having nothing. Something a lot of the group could identify with.
The Sharing
The Mustard Tree Drama Group started on Thursday 6th May. Since then we had been meeting weekly with a bit of a break over summer. It was important then to show off what the group had achieved so on Monday 11th October they took part in a ‘sharing’ performance. This was a collection of scenes, some were about the politics of Santa’s office and the difficulties of dealing with elves who want better working conditions, others were about a crime that had been committed and whether the perpetrator was going to give way to police interrogation. The group performed excellently even though some had never been in a performance before. They were also not phased by the minimal audience and focused like professionals.
Photographs by courtesy of Gbenga Afolabi
