European Solidarity Corps

ESC 10:
Acting Together
project

September 2023 - August 2024

Applications now CLOSED for 2023-24

What is the Acting Together project?

Acting Together is a European Solidarity Corps project. It is

a volunteering programme based in Newbridge, Ireland for

young actors aged between 21 and 30. The volunteers

work with our theatre company, providing free drama and

film-making workshops to teenagers in our community.

The volunteers support all areas of the theatre company,

from administration to directing plays.

In return, the project will train the actors in the process of

drama facilitation and directing so that they can enhance

their employability by gaining valuable new skills.

Who should apply?

You need to be an actor, and to understand acting

techniques. This is because you will be facilitating

theatre-making with young people and directing them in

theatre pieces. Therefore, trained actors are best suited to

be volunteers on this project.

This project promotes the European Solidarity Corps goal

of inclusion and diversity by selecting volunteers from

countries and cultures whose backgrounds are different to

ours in Ireland. We are interested in all trained actors, or

experienced professional actors, from any country in the

EU, and beyond the EU, who are aged 21 to 30. We

especially welcome applications from young actors and

theatre-makers:

who have ethnic, migrant, black, Asian, North African,

Arabian backgrounds;

who are openly LGBTQI+. Their presence here models

and makes visible diversity for your young people with

whom they work closely;

from Eastern Europe (Poland, the Balkans, former

Soviet countries, Slavic countries etc);

from Turkey, from the Baltic states, from Russia and

Euro-Asia;

who are available to come to Ireland for a full year

(not just part of a year) from September 1st 2023 to August 31st 2024.

Are social, outgoing, friendly young people who can live independently; who are curious and ask questions; and who can take initiative;
Can speak English well.

Why This Project?

Young people who have trained as actors in several

countries face barriers getting into a career in

theatre-making. In many cases they were the brave ones,

who decide not to do Engineering, Law, or another subject

that would make them employable. They choose acting.

We are honouring their bravery in making this choice. In

some countries, employment is marginal at best for actors.

Our project aims to increase their access to the job market

by training them in youth drama facilitation, a skill that

enhances their actor-training.

This year-long programme would also show them how to

set up a youth theatre and youth drama project when they

return home, as well as how to use drama as a tool for

social change in their own countries. Thus, they would be better equipped to promote inclusion, overcome economic barriers, and other barriers linked to education and training in their home countries.

The volunteers will return to their countries, hopefully

inspired by the liberal values we espouse in our theatre

work, and enriched by the knowledge of using theatre to

effect social change, to make projects of their own that

promote these values and aspire to change society for the

better in their communities.

What work will volunteers do?

Volunteers will ‘shadow’ or support professionals in the

areas of:

Drama Facilitation
Theatre Directing
Project Administration
Filmmaking
Performing/Acting

They will take part in a full training programme on drama facilitation and directing. They will be able to facilitate their own workshops and direct plays on their own, having spent some time observing, and then working (under supervision and support) to run workshops in pairs.

Most volunteers will practice and develop such skills as:

youth drama facilitation
theatre-making with young people
youth theatre administration
performing in English
creative collaboration

Some volunteers will also practice:

website maintenance
graphic design
filmmaking.

Who will volunteers work with?

This is a solidarity project. That means that the project is

designed to have a positive impact in our local community.

We need the help of volunteers to achieve this. Our

positive impact will be on the lives of young people aged

from 11 to 25 in County Kildare in Ireland.

Crooked House works with young people who come to our

centre for drama workshops and to make theatre projects.

We also work with young people in the community, where

we go to give workshops (e.g. to schools and youth clubs).

Most of the young people with whom we work are in the

14 to 17 age range. We do not work with children.

In our centre we offer drama workshops, we devise plays,

and we rehearse work for performance. The young people come to separate workshops, each one tailored to their age and interests. Workshops are in the evening time and at weekends. There are between 16 and 26 young people in each workshop. Therefore, a lot of the volunteering activity

happens in evenings and at weekends.

Crooked House also visits youth clubs, schools and youth

projects where we deliver either once-off drama

workshops, or more usually, 10-week drama programmes

or a programme for the full year (once a week). In all these

cases the drama work focuses on helping the young

people develop resilience, acquire performance skills,

and re-learn the skills needed for active citizenship. We

have published material online about how we think drama

does this (and it can be accessed here. You can also read

about it, and the type of drama activities that we do, on the Drama for Youth Works website

You can see a lot of the performance work that we have done over the years on our Crooked House You Tube Channel

Project Activities: what will volunteers learn?

They will learn about the theory and practice of youth drama facilitation.

There is a part-time training programme delivered every week to all volunteers. They will learn:

methods and techniques of drama facilitation;
working creatively with young people
strategies for devising and creating work;
effective planning of workshops;
safety and ethical issues;
theatre for social change;
using theatre to raise awareness of equality issues;
developing a drama programme for young people
running a young actor’s agency
running a youth theatre.

They will take part in theatre-making, developing their skills in performing in English. Some of the work will be in international groups and other projects will be with their Irish peers. Volunteers will have the opportunity to work with Irish theatre-makers in order to:

• rehearse and stage scenes from classical work in English (including Shakespeare);

• rehearse and stage scenes from contemporary Irish playwrights;

• create a post-dramatic and documentary-theatre performance about themselves and their concerns, to be staged for an Irish audience and live streamed;

• create a 30-minute performance for schools, that will be staged in several schools in the region;

• there may be opportunities for volunteers to take part in plays being rehearsed and staged by Kildare Youth Theatre.

Volunteers will learn how to direct plays and performances

with young people. For the first 5 months they will show

experienced professional directors, attending rehearsals

and perhaps acting as Assistant Director, Support Director

or Stage Manager. There will be opportunities to do

this for:

• a Shakespearean production

• a new play especially written for young people and

supported by Britain’s National Theatre in a project called

Connections.

• in every weekly workshop young people will devise and

perform short scenes by which they learn to act and

collaborate.

Volunteers will find out here how to use feedback and

how to direct those short scenes. From January to June, the work of shadowing will continue, but from now, volunteers will also co-direct their own small-scale projects with young people. They will work in pairs on co-directing a one-hour contemporary script from one of the following sources:

the National Theatre (UK) Connections portfolio of

plays for young people - click here

Youth Theatre Ireland’s Playshare collection of

contemporary scripts for young people - here

Crooked House’s collection of new work for young

people

Any play from their own culture that might be

attractive to do with young people in Ireland

A classical one-act play that they admire, and think

would be suitable.

A devised piece of new theatre made in collaboration

with the young people.

All plays will be staged for the public, in very small

audience numbers in the intimate setting of our own workshop room.

They will be staged during June Fest, a community festival in Newbridge (https://www.junefest.ie/).

They will also learn about theatre project administration

and project support - managing attendance registers,

workshop planning, scheduling, and email communications

with our partners.

It will include creating content for our social media,

as well as reporting formally on events and projects.

They will also have a regular session on understanding

European and other funding mechanisms, such as

Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps.

Some of the volunteers will manage and run

Crooked House’s Young Actors’ Agency. They will

maintain communication between agents and young

people, organising filming for auditions, and update

members profiles on the website.

Other volunteers will support our international projects (Erasmus+) by recruiting young people for the projects, helping to make project learning materials, liaising with partners, and assisting with training and hosting projects.
Producing events will be a feature of the administration work. This involves planning to organise venues, participants, scheduling, marketing and evaluation.

Some volunteers will form part of the digital media team.

They will have specific skills or third level training in

filmmaking and website design and maintenance. One will

have graphic design skills. They will:

Shoot and edit films with our members
Shoot and edit photography, documenting events and

activities

Assist with graphic design for all our projects
Maintain websites
Maintain social media accounts and generate creative

content.

Accommodation

Our project takes place in the town of Newbridge in County

Kildare, Ireland. Because accommodation is very

expensive in Ireland (and especially in Newbridge) we

locate our volunteers with families that we know. It is

usually not possible, financially, to rent houses for

volunteers only, as the cost is well beyond the budget that

we receive, and we also must rent it for a full year.

Therefore, we find accommodation for our ESC volunteers

and we have done so in family homes. You will have a

bedroom of your own. You will have the use of the kitchen

to cook your own meals. It is important to take note that the

family does not cook for you. We will give you a monthly

budget of €450 to pay for food and other necessities (this

amount includes the ‘pocket money allowance). In some cases, there will be two volunteers in each house (each with their own rooms). We pay the owner directly €350 for the rent (this includes all costs for heating and water etc). Most houses are within 1 kilometre of the town, but some are 2 kilometres from the town centre, and we give each volunteer a bicycle to come and go to these.

Because these are family houses in which the owner lives

it is usually not possible to have guests, or boyfriends or

girlfriends stay over in your room. In those cases where

someone is visiting you and wishes to stay it is best for you

both to rent an Airbnb for the time needed.

Recently, Ireland – like many countries - has taken in

thousands of Ukrainian refugees and accommodation has

become very scare since people are offering their spare

rooms to refugees. This is commendable, of course. It

means that it is even more difficult to get accommodation,

so we are grateful to the families who provide us with the

rooms. We hope that you understand.

Who are the staff team?

Volunteers will be a core part of our organisation, working

alongside other volunteers and staff. There will be 12 ESC

volunteers, along with 2 students from Maynooth

University on placement, and up to 4 Erasmus+ Student

Traineeship placement students from European

universities. They will all work as a team, receiving the

same training and sharing the same programmes. Those

16 young volunteers will form a learning group and a

community. They will have the sole use of our Centre

during the day while our members are in schools and

college.

During this time, they will be supported by 5 staff

members:

Peter Hussey – Artistic Director and Programme

Coordinator Contact Peter

Oğuzhan Şahin – Outreach Manager, Workshop

Facilitator, Volunteer Supervisor Contact Oğuzhan

Cansu Genç – Administrator. Contact Cansu

Ann-Marie McIntyre – English language teacher, Volunteer Mentor. Contact Ann-Marie Contact Ann-Marie (put For Attention of Ann-Marie in the subject line).

Anna Galligan – Volunteer Trainer in Drama Facilitation. Contact Anna (put For Attention of Anna in the subject line).