St Mary’s Drama Students Work with Communities in South Africa

Undergraduate Drama and Applied Theatre students from St Mary’s University College, Twickenham recently spent more than a week in Durban, South Africa to deliver a range of community workshops and drama productions.
The annual trip, which is now in its third year, saw the final year Drama St Mary’s students use a range of interactive performances, games, songs and poetry to work with local communities and school children to explore the cultural differences and similarities between the attitudes of young people from both countries.
The trip offers students the opportunity to take the last three years of learning and apply it in a completely different setting. As well as working with the local community, the group were able to showcase ‘forum theatre’ as a type of drama with a number of events such as a jazz evening held at a local art gallery.
St Mary’s Programme Director Patsy Burn commented, “The trip to Africa is such an exciting time for our students and gives them an opportunity to see what a huge impact Applied Theatre can have in transforming people’s lives. The people we worked with in South Africa have also had a huge impact on us.”