Editorial: Summer Term 1 2019-20

Very suddenly, we find ourselves in a period of greater uncertainty than ever. The Covid-19/Coronavirus outbreak carries potential for a crippling or even fatal effect on aspects of the theatre and drama industry, just as it does in all others. As I write this, theatres across the country have been forced to close, TV and film productions have halted shooting, and it is at time of writing difficult to imagine how public examinations are going to take place in what is predicted to be the peak period of the epidemic in the UK. While we are going to press with the most up-to-date information we can offer, I urge you to double check details of any workshops, courses and performances covered in this issue of Drama & Theatre, as a number of things are being cancelled and postponed as precautionary measures against the spread of the disease.

Having said this, there is no denying the strength of ‘blitz spirit’ among the people of our own and many other nations in the face of this international emergency. The Music & Drama Education Expo took place in the first week of March and while careful screening was implemented of visitors and exhibitors at the event, footfall was remarkably unaffected at that early stage in the unfolding of recent events, with thousands of drama and music teachers coming to share expertise and inspiration in workshops that were truly uplifting.

In this issue of D&T we introduce a number of projects which are setting out to help teachers (both specialist drama teachers and those, particularly in the primary sector, who are non-specialist) to integrate drama into a creative curriculum. Devotees of immersive theatre company Punchdrunk will be excited to hear that they have inaugurated a teacher training programme (page 14) which is only in its pilot phase at the moment, but which hopes to introduce interactive theatre techniques into everyday schooling. At the moment, the focus of this project is in and around London, but we also report on a project in the North of England which is taking workshops into primary schools to encourage political engagement (page 26), as well as a national survey conducted by National Drama (page 18) to establish the state of drama teaching in the secondary sector with a view to working out how best to support it going forward.

One thing we have to be grateful for in a time when large-scale public gatherings are being curbed and performance venues closed for the forseeable future is that theatre-streaming was invented. On page 49, I review a really fantastic resource for accessing a huge library of theatre productions online, and I highly recommend it while we undergo this strange period of isolation.

Sarah Lambie

Editor