The ever growing and exciting ‘Livewire’ were this week successful with an ambitious funding bid to The Arts Council England.

DURING these uncertain times all workshops have been cancelled and regular sessions aren’t expected to continue until the summer holidays at least. So what could Livewire do? Sit and wait for this to blow over? No, that is not the ‘Livewire way’.

Having successfully bid for nearly £28000, Livewire are developing their technological capacity to deliver an online ‘Theatre Challenge’. Livewire members will be engaged in a series of devising workshops online over the next 6 weeks. During that time young people from Harlow will tell their stories, share their experiences and how they feel about the Covid-19 crisis. This will be turned into a script which will then become an original film called ‘Lockdown’. Young people will be involved in drama, recording scenes in their own homes (with direction and under supervision) and musicians will be collaborating to write and record original music, while dancers will be choreographing and performing in their own surroundings.

Creative Director Sam Ashford told us “We are delighted to be able to run this project, we all miss the young people so much and can’t wait to get creative and get this film out to the world! Our film will look at this crisis through the eyes of the young people themselves and explore how our lives will be changed forever. It’s a unique project, highly complex in it’s delivery, it will be a huge challenge but we are confident we can pull this off!”.

This is Livewire’s second project delivered through Arts Council funding and is important, not just for Livewire, but also for Harlow in general as we move towards becoming the cultural heartbeat of Essex. We are lucky to have the Harlow Playhouse, Rhiannon Faith, Razed Roof, Harlow Rock School, Hip Hop Pop to name but a small number of the many organisations in our town and it is a significant step for in the right direction for our own organisations to be successful in receiving these highly sought after funds from the Arts Council.

“I can’t wait to get started, I am so excited! I have been feeling less and less motivated as this has gone on, I am keeping up with my school work but I need something to help my mental health. I need something to get excited about and this is it. I can’t wait to make something special with my Livewire Family’ – Abbie Shadbolt Smith, Livewire member.

Livewire members should pay close attention to the Livewire Facebook and Instagram accounts (livewiretheatre) for schedule announcements and instructions on how to get involved.