The last two years have been a busy time for the company. As well as our usual approach to creating new and stimulating projects each year, we also maintained our commitment to educating people more fully about mental illness and mental health care. We took part in a number of celebrations and workshops during mental health awareness week in 2019 and maintained our commitment to universities as part of their teaching programmes throughout the year. Prior to the lockdown we engaged in public performances of our Monologues and the previous year (2018) with our production of Fragments. There has also been a significant change in our membership which meant we had to take time to readjust ourselves as a Company. During that time we produced a number of high quality plays and workshops. We performed at open venues – theatres and pubs – schools, universities, mental health units, charities, conferences and on the streets of Hemel Hempstead. Just prior to the lockdown we began to work on our new project: the impact of social media on our mental health. We had begun discussions with schools, both primary and secondary, to develop our project so that it would be classroom based, appropriate to a number of age groups and enabling of discussion and reflection. Sadly, lockdown meant we were unable to use our regular space for rehearsals and therefore the project was put on hold, although in the coming weeks we are very hopeful that we will have a venue to rehearse in, we can then begin to map out this production once more. During lockdown, however, we have remained together and as active as we can. We have manged to facilitate some online sessions and have been booked for two future dates this year, one of which will be pre-recorded the other we hope will be back in the lecture halls of Hertfordshire University. We remain optimistic and hopeful that we can soon begin performing again and that come this time next year we will be, once more, back on the road facilitating workshops and sharing our work.
