Our workshop at Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre went extremely well. 14 people in total attended including students and three members of staff from SDAC.  We ended up with 12 very different 100 word plays whose subject matter ranged from visions of the future to relationships between families, friends and lovers. One play was set in a lift, another inside a public WC. We were joined by 11 fabulous actors who took to the process and gave them all during a fast paced day of back to back rehearsals. The plays were showcased in the evening as part of an informal performance. We collected lots of feedback from writers and actors -’every word can become the beginning of a story’ commented one of the writers.

Yesterday was a day of meetings. We went to Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School to observe an English lesson and prepare for the weekend workshops.  It was then off to another school in the same area (Xuhui District) - No 3 Middle School, which is affiliated to Shanghai Teachers University. There, we joined a delegation of four teachers from Caister High, Middle and First schools and also met headteachers and teachers from both No 3 Middle School and Dong’er Primary School. We’re planning a collaborative project as part of a broader programme between the linked schools.

In less than an hour, we start a two day workshop at Shanghai Theatre Academy, one of China’s leading training insitutions. We’ll be working with a group of 20 writers and 15 actors.  More to follow on this soon, along with some pics.

It’s the evening now in Shanghai and traffic is still pouring past our hotel on the Yanan Road. Shanghai feels distinctly autumunal with leaves falling off the trees in the French Concession. Today has been an enjoyable mix of work and pleasure.  We took the chance to stretch our legs after a long flight in Fuxing Park and had a late lunch at the Yin Yang bar.  We then went to meet Nick Yu, Ray Liu and Sophia Zhang at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre to check arrangements for our first workshop tomorrow morning. The Asia Contemporary Theatre Festival is in full swing, with productions from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong as well as mainland China.  This year’s theme is ‘Creative Asia’, with over 100 artists gathering to discuss the future of theatre in Asia. It was great to hear that the workshop will be full and we’re looking forward to working with young, emerging writers and actors.  Having squeezed in a quick bit of tea-buying on our way back to the hotel, we then ate a delicious Shanghainese meal and discussed ways in which Chinese theatre could be profiled in the UK.  It’s an interesting thought that by the end of the week, we will have generated well over 100 plays written by British and Chinese writers.  Creating opportunities for these plays to be seen by wider audiences is just one area which we will be talking through over the next few days.

This weekend we fly to Shanghai prior to running a week of workshops at Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre (where we’ll be part of the Asia Contemporary Theatre Festival), Shanghai Theatre Academy and Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School. We established links with all three places in April and next week’s programme directly follows on from our initial visit. We’re going to be working with different groups of people – professional writers, drama students, school teachers and pupils. Given the workload, we’ve decided to take another theatre director with us – Paul Robinson, whose day job is Artistic Director of Theatre 503. It’s his first time in China and we’re looking forward to seeing what he makes of Shanghai. 

Following highly successful workshops in Guangzhou in September the creative language learning strand of 100 Words is developing fast.  On Wednesday we held our first workshop for a group of teachers from Caister High, Middle and First Schools. The schools already have active links with No 3 Middle School and Dong Er Primary School in Xuhui District, Shanghai, part of a dynamic programme faciliated by Norfolk County Council with support from British Council World Links. With Creative Partnerships Great Yarmouth (run by Norfolk & Norwich Festival), we are planning a six week collaborative project that will take place in January and February 2008 involving both the Caister schools and their counterparts in Shanghai. Last week’s workshop led by Natasha Betteridge, Lynn Whitehead and Jennifer Lim, was an introduction to the 100 Words model and also to Mandarin, which is not taught in any of the Caister schools. Teachers looked at scripts, wrote and performed 10 word plays, and learnt to sing ’Three Blind Mice’ in Mandarin.  There was a lot of positive feedback from all involved – ‘Wednesday was a great sucess’ commented Valerie Miller, Deputy Headteacher at Caister High. The next step will involve some of the Caister teachers visiting Shanghai in November to meet and plan with their Chinese colleagues.

Next week sees Natasha, Oliver Williams and Rob Raskovsky running a 100 Words workshop with students at Moseley School in Birmingham as part of its Festival of Diversity. Moseley School is linked with Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Foreign Language School, and our work will lay the foundations for future collaboration around creative language learning between the two schools.