Many Directions Theatre Company grew out of our regular weekly drama and dance sessions with a group of people with learning difficulties, some with multiple and profound disabilities.
No matter what the level of ability or experience members have, we celebrate each individuals’ talent, creativity and energy through the arts, be that performing a complex dance or sounding a triangle, with equal dignity. At the same time, it’s really important that our work is of quality, that we are supporting people to the best of their abilities, both in artistic content and in the projects and themes we tackle. Only in that way can our work seriously raise awareness not only about the challenges our members face, but their amazing talents and abilities.
Company members spend time devising and creating shows, working as a team with our skilled practitioners and volunteers. The company has performed several public shows in local theatres and community venues.
Don Quixote, Plough Arts Centre, Torrington, 2020
Our most recent performance in February 2020 was Don Quixote, at the Plough Arts Centre in Torrington. This was a moving and celebratory piece of work for the company as a tribute to Peter Harris, co-founder and Director of Wolf and Water Arts Company, who sadly passed away on Saturday 6th August 2017.
Before being diagnosed with cancer, Pete was working with Many Directions to create a production of Don Quixote. We completed this production in his memory, which took three years of devising and planning to bring to the stage. The company ran a matinee and an evening performance to a full theatre, and received a standing ovation for both.
Pete said: Poor old Don Quixote! He has read far too many books on chivalry and has convinced himself, that with a colander for a helmet and an umbrella for a sword, he’s a real life knight in shining armour – fighting monsters, righting wrongs and saving damsels…. but unfortunately he isn’t! He mistakes windmills for giants, inn for castles and flocks of sheep for armies – leaving his long suffering servant Sancho Panza to pick up the pieces…
Hansel and Gretel, Queens Theatre, Barnstaple 2014
Hansel and Gretel was a performance that told both the traditional folk tale and the story of the T4 Project that targeted people with learning disabilities in the run up to the Holocaust.
Using the structure of fairy tales, we examined the rise of the Nazi party’s build up to the Holocaust through it’s treatment of people with disabilities as part of the T4 program, also bringing into focus our members very honest and raw everyday experiences of bullying and discrimination. Comfortable it was not. Brickbats and bouquets. We expected nothing less. This ran for a series of performances as part of the North Devon Fringe Theatre Festival, June 2014.
Amazing and profound…this was an important piece of work, Festival Review
A perfectly woven, moving and thought provoking piece of theatre…this poignant performance deepens the significance of the the tale of Hansel and Gretel. A truly profound and moving piece of work, Festival Review
A Mid Summer Nights’ Dream, Queens Theatre, Barnstaple 2012
A re-telling of Shakespeare’s love story set in the trenches of World War One. A series of shows performed as part of North Devon Fringe Theatre Festival.
A deeply moving & thrilling re-imagining of A Midsummer Nights” Dream, North Devon Journal
Extraordinary. That is the show of the festival, Festival review
The Ballad of Boozo the Clown, 2009
An everyday story of a Parisian alcoholic suicidal clown whose life disintegrates further and further.
The only non professional performance to be listed in the Guardian newspapers ‘Top Ten Shows’ of the year.