York Theatre Royal’s On Our Turf project is shortlisted for a Hambleton District Council Community Award.
As part of the search to find and honour Hambleton’s community champions, the team at York Theatre Royal was delighted to hear that the On Our Turf project had made it to the shortlist for an Arts and Culture Award.
On Our Turf has been a collaboration between the theatre and four market towns in Yorkshire over the last three years. The ambitious project, funded largely by Arts Council England, aimed to co-programme and create work with communities around the region through a series of festivals and events. These have included large scale community productions, pop-up music and comedy events, workshops by world class artists and many surprising and engaging happenings that have enlivened the arts scene in Helmsley, Pocklington, Selby and Easingwold.
The project culminated in 2015 with a promenade production of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Phil Grainger, in Easingwold as part of the town’s LittleFest. Over 100 community members were involved in the making of the production and an audience of over 500 people saw it over the course of the weekend in October.
Beverly Bond, one of the community festival organisers said:
The event was highly inclusive and brought together many different groups of residents including people with learning disabilities, mental health service users, young people, elderly, local businesses, schools, the Women’s Institute, to name but a few. It did everything and more than a community arts project could be expected to achieve and I am very proud that this took place in our town.
York Theatre Royal and the Arts Council are in the process of evaluating the three year initiative and are delighted that the Easingwold leg of the project has been recognised with an award nomination. The York Press named Alice in Wonderland the community production of the year at the end of 2015.
Abbigail Ollive, Head of Communications at York Theatre Royal:
On Our Turf has been a fantastic project to be involved in. It has brought communities together in creative ways and left a legacy to produce and curate work in these towns into the future.
The Hambleton District Council Awards were launched two years ago to recognise and celebrate the exceptional contribution to the district made by countless residents – young and old. They cover everything from Community Group of the Year to Citizen of the Year.
Councillor Mrs Bridget Fortune, Portfolio Holder for Customer and Leisure Services said:
We want to reward the positive – and often unnoticed – voluntary work undertaken by our residents who all work hard to ensure their communities are a nice place to live. These individuals and groups work tirelessly for no pay, to provide excellent services, projects and experiences for their communities. The awards will allow us to give them the praise they so richly deserve.
The Arts and Culture Award recognises individuals, groups or projects that have made an outstanding contribution to the arts and other cultural activities in the area. The activity must have improved participation in the arts and be able to demonstrate high quality arts experience.
The award ceremony will be held on the evening of the 17th March.