Phoebe Edmonds, a Community Theatre Facilitator and Director, joins us to share her experiences.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello! I am Phoebe (she/her) a community theatre practitioner. I am also the Movement Organiser for SCM, but today I am going to chat a little bit more about my theatre work (though of course the two things cross over a lot!). More specifically I am going to focus on some of the work we have been doing recently with refugees and asylum seekers, and a project we ran last year with a group of Palestinians in Bethlehem. So, a bit about me; I graduated a couple of years ago when I joined SCM as a Faith in Action project worker. Alongside this, I established my own community theatre company, Grapevine Theatre CIC. We have three main areas of work; creating professional political theatre productions, creating theatre with community groups, and delivering workshops to explore drama and social justice. Most recently, a lot of our work is shifting to being for and with refugees and people seeking asylum.
What role do you currently have?
Technically I am a company director... but the reality is I do anything we need to get our projects up and running. I work with my best friend and other company director, to design, deliver and evaluate all our projects. This includes meeting with community groups, maintaining relationships with partners, but also the logistical bits like our finances, website management, admin, our socials, funding applications, spreadsheets... If I were to choose a title that encapsulates what I do most though it would be Community Theatre Facilitator/Director.
How did you decide to work for your current organisation?
In my first lecture at Liverpool Institue for Preforming Arts, the head of the course said “look around the room, one day these people will be your colleagues, you may even have a company together”. At the time I thought ‘that'd nice but a tad unlikely’. Turns out he was right, and in my final year I turned to my best friend, and house mate and said shall we do a couple projects together. So, we did. Then a couple more. We said perhaps we will work together for a year and see where we get to. It’s been two years now and there is no sign of us stopping yet. If anything, our projects are getting more and more exciting. Our university course focused on how theatre can be a tool for social change, we ran numerous projects as part of our studies, and since graduating have been inspired by these to run our own and more as a pair.
What attracted you to the role you currently have?
In 2017 I went to see my first piece of Refugee Theatre; The Jungle, produced by Good Chance Theatre. I think, although I maybe didn’t clock it at the time, this was the moment I realised I wanted to do community theatre, and more specifically work with refugees and asylum seekers. Running a company was not necessarily something I envisioned myself doing when I began this journey, but I suppose grew organically into doing. In my final year at university, I ran my first project with people seeking asylum; an immersive show about recipes and the stories they held. This solidified my passion for telling the stories of people we don’t hear enough of or are misrepresented. I believe every single person has a story to tell, a talent to share, and theatre is my way of helping people do that.
I think the thing that attracted me to running my own projects was the freedom which comes with that. Although it can be difficult to find time, money, energy to create a project from scratch, it means I am passionate about all the work we create. It also means I can use theatre as my tool of choice to create work I believe is meaningful and important. One of the most important elements of my work is using theatre as a tool to create spaces for communities to meet and intertwine, as without it we can become insular, only mixing in our own circles and not listening to others. I feel the best example of when we did this was last year with our project ‘Narratives of Hope’. We worked with Embrace the Middle East, who paired us with Anar in Bethlehem, an organisation helping young people who have grown up in a war zone, through psych-social support, art and various other sessions. We worked with them over several workshops to create a performance of poetry. As I sit writing this, I can see on my wall a piece of art which quotes a line from the poem they wrote “Blessed are those who protest for liberation”. Their poem was then performed at Greenbelt to festival goers. This could have been the end of this project. The audience watch a poem, hear about the project and then go on with their day. However, the most important element of this project is what came next. The audience were then invited to write their own poem and devise their own movement in response. We then performed these back to the community live from Bethlehem, where we facilitated a discussion between the two groups. The creation of poetry and theatre became a communal experience that both parties could relate to, to engage in dialogue. It is using theatre to connect people I hope to do more and more of as we move forward.
How do you feel called to your role?
Every time I look at the news, the rhetoric from Reform UK, the alienation of refugees in the media, the policies of our past and current government, I see a society intent on dividing us. I hope that in a small way through theatre we can try our best to combat that, to create experiences that unite us.
How does your faith help you in the challenges you face at work?
There is a lot of uncertainty in my work. This is always scary, I’m never sure when or if my next project will be. I can also be offered opportunities out of my comfort zone, most recently we joined Sabeel-Kairos on a delegation to Palestine and are currently working with them to further advocate for Palestinian rights. In the moments when I’m offered something scary, out of my comfort zone or a big opportunity I turn to Advices and Queries. In particular I turn to Advices and Queries 27:
Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak. When decisions have to be made, are you ready to join with others in seeking clearness, asking for God’s guidance and offering counsel to one another?
I often recite this to myself (and my colleagues at SCM), as it inspires me to do the thing I fear. So much so I have the words ‘Let your life speak’ tattooed to act as a constant reminder. I am also drawn to the element of the quote which speaks about using my gifts in the service of the community. This would be my advice to others discerning their vocation too (spoilers for the next question). I ask myself what ‘gifts do I have’ and then how can I use this in serving others.
What advice would you give to someone trying to discern their vocation?
I spent a lot of time thinking ‘what should I do with my life’, ‘how should I use my degree’, ‘I’m not good enough or experienced enough to make this work’. I still have these questions, but at one point I decided to stop looking for the answers. Instead, I asked myself ‘what do I care about’, then I thought ‘what element of each project do I love the most’ and ‘what about each project is important’. Once I answered those questions, I looked to create work that fulfilled those three things; care, love and importance. Once you find something you care about, keep doing that.