Flute Theatre hosts virtual Shakespeare Festival for autistic individuals and their families
Hattie Fisk
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Since March 2020, Flute Theatre has made over 700 online performances for autistic individuals and their families. Now they are presenting a digital Shakespeare festival from 7 June – 16 July, with three productions available to watch.
Two previous Flute Theatre productions will feature in the project: Shakespeare’s Pericles and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These will sit alongside their newly commissioned The Tempest – created in association with Teatro La Plaza.
Flute Theatre’s Shakespeare Festival has been created and developed with international partners: Teatro La Plaza in Lima, Peru, Escuela Monserrat Montera from Granollers, Spain and Samatha Learning Centre in Bangalore, India.
The productions include sensory games, tailored to the specific needs of the participants. Interactive methods are musical, funny, and physical; create a unique experience shared between actors and autistic participants in one-to-one performances. From 7 June, the productions will be available online for 6 weeks
Kelly Hunter MBE, artistic director of Flute Theatre said 'This festival is the culmination of our creative response to the pandemic. Since March 2020 we have adapted our unique sensory and communicative productions to be available online for the autistic community and those with special needs across the world.'
‘Although theatres have been closed, our creativity, hearts and minds have remained open – we’ve formed bonds and partnerships with families and artists across the world from Blackpool to Lima, from India to Spain. Whilst the pandemic continues to wreck peoples lives in the global south, we are working with those most in need, continuing to use theatre to combat exclusion and allow people who are completely isolated to share how it feels to be alive’
To book visit their website.