Welcome to Stage Beyond Theatre Company!

Stage Beyond is a theatre company for young adults with learning disabilities. The company is made up of members from throughout the North West, who already have shown a keen interest in drama. These actors research, devise and tour shows as well as providing accompanying workshops. Based in the Millennium Forum, the company offers the opportunity to explore issues significant to the learning disabled community and present these as theatre pieces and open workshops to the general community.

The company offers theatre training in many art forms, including; dance, voice, physical theatre, music, set design, stage management, lighting directing, facilitation skills and script writing. These take the form of master classes with practitioners from throughout the UK.  

Our program this year will also prove to be a busy yet enjoyable and varied schedule. You can also follow our progress on Twitter (@stagebeyond) and on Facebook!

Stage Beyond members during a workshop with Tim Wheeler from Mind the Gap Theatre Company.

Any account of our work this year must include our weekly workshops with local primary and post-primary schools. We have the privilege of working with pupils from Ardnashee School & College Derry, Lisneal College Derry, St Patrick's & St Brigid's College Claudy and from Knockavoe School, Strabane. These workshops are tailored to the needs of the pupils in each school and aim to introduce our young people to the concept of theatre as fun, to increase self-confidence and team skills and to encourage creativity in a safe space.

Stage Beyond are also delighted to welcome Kieran Lagan (Queens University and Lyric Theatre) as part of our Off the Page! Legacy Project. 

This project aims to draw young people into the the world of Heaney, Shakespeare and Roald Dahl through movement, speech and performance. Teaching through performance helps students to internalize the language and meaning of the literature and to have fun! Throughout the year we not only will develop literary and performance based skills, but we will also nurture skills that will serve students throughout their lives.

Fairy Tales and Friends is the name of our current workshop series with Knockavoe School, Strabane. Each week our Facilitator in Residence and a member of our Theatre Squad visit a group of pupils gathered from various year groups in their fabulously equipped school to work on a fairy tale together - echoing their work in class. As a group, we read and explore each story - bringing it to life and working together to create a new way of looking at our favourite tales.

Stage Beyond are delighted to welcome the acclaimed writer and practictioner Ronan Carr as part of our annual performance this year. Ronan is working with the company to devise a hard hitting piece of theatre dealing with online safety, vulnerability and relationships. After meeting the company in December 2014, Ronan currently works with the members on a weekly basis, discussing and devising our performance piece.

 

This exciting new performance piece will be toured in the late spring of 2015. Stage Beyond will also deliver a series of workshops based on the piece and the issues it examines.

We are also looking forward to a new project in early 2015 with Ardnashee College.We will work with two groups of pupils to explore Stranger Danger and online safety. At the end of this project we will have produced two examples of digital work that can be used as a resource for anyone dealing with the issues in question. 

Stage Beyond are looking forward to a busy, exciting and creative year - we hope you can join us!

It costs just 13p per person per week to maintain the arts in Northern Ireland. 

A small investment in the Arts yields Big returns for Everyone.

The arts work hard for our economy and our society: 

• Promoting NI as a location of choice for international businesses
• Generating majoy employment through the Creative Industries
• Regenerating our towns and cities
• Bringing people and communities closer together
• Creating a place where we all want to live

The arts have already shouldered more than their fair share of recent cuts leaving the arts with just 0.1% of the overall budget for NI.

Please lend your support in any way you can to prevent vital arts funding being cut!

 

Dee Conaghan and Frank Nelis of Stage Beyond make sure our voice is heard!