kIRA & APRIL

April and Kira were students at Pendleton College and were part of our Pendleton College ensemble in 2021 and 2022, along with attending our summer intensive in 2022.  
The Stage Directions journey:
 April  
I started with Stage Directions when they came to Pendleton and did the first collaboration, that was Thick Skin. So that was our first introduction to Stage Directions. And bearing in mind, I'd never worked with another theatre company, and I was very kind of fresh and new into college. So it was all quite scary actually, like, the professional companies. We've always been taught as well that, you've got to be professional. So we were like 16/17. So, we thought, why would they want to work with us? But it was a really good experience. It kind of opened our eyes. It's like what working in the actual industry itself would be like. 
How has co-creation contributed to the development of self-expression, agency and self-efficacy?
April  
(Working with Thick Skin) - the dynamic of how they create is different. We've always been taught, you get a script, you learn your script, you learn your character, and then you perform it. We've never made a performance from scratch like that whatsoever with absolutely no idea what we're doing and be able to put our ideas in as well. It opened our eyes to the fact that an actor doesn’t only do what they're told to do from the director, but you can work together. And it was a really big eye opener of other ways you can create theatre rather than ways of being taught in college. 
 Kira 
And also the fact that we were putting in our ideas. They treat you like an adult and they treat you like a professional. We've been told the industry is big and scary and you have to be professional. And then we went into this workshop, and they were lying on the ground during breaks just playing around with like different things they could do. It brought a lot of joy back to theatre, just because it was showing us that it doesn't have to be this big, scary thing. The whole point of theatre is that it's different than a corporate world. And they say that it's like a corporate world, and it's not. And I feel like Stage Directions focusses on that. And making sure that it is still enjoyable, even if you are going into it mainstream for a career. 
April and Kira then went on to work with Girl Gang on another Pendleton College collaboration. Together they devised a piece of theatre, It’s A Lot, which was performed at the Lowry as part of the Stage Directions Festival in July 2022. Young people were involved at every stage of the process, including being on the interview panel when choosing which company would get the commission.  

April SD 
(Working with Girl Gang) was really good. There's a lot of people in the world that know my story, but only like professionals all that kind of stuff. And people only know a brief kind of moment of it. I'm used to playing a character, I'm not used to playing me. Playing yourself on stage is a very different concept. So it was really strange. It was it was a really good experience. But Megan (Girl Gang) actually came up to me and asked me if I wanted to tell my story, because she was interested in it. Like, she didn't really know much about me, but she asked me and that's really like heartfelt. Because nobody asks you anymore, nobody comes up to you and says, you know how are you doing? Nobody asks you for your story. And it was a really good thing. And then to see the actual audience reaction, actually sit there and listen to what people have to say, from a different perspective, whether it was mine or any of the other monologues there were was really good. I looked down at the audience, and I could tell how they're feeling, I could tell what their views on everybody's stories were without even having to get to know them. And that was an incredible experience and an experience I've never had before. 
Kira  
Doing the summer celebration - that was the first time I think we had people looking up to us. Because they were saying to us, like, we seem professional. I think it gave us a lot of opportunity to kind of teach and putting into practice what we've learned. So rather than being dictated to and being like, Oh, you have to do this, because we know what we're doing. It was nice to work with people younger than you who have a respect for you.  
How did this learning/training impact your professionalism/employability and by extension, develop the sector in Salford?

Kira and April have since left Pendleton and are at college, whilst running their own theatre company.  

April  
Oh, it's called Downside Up. Yeah, it's not massive, because obviously, it will still remain local. But it's a start. And I'm teaching, which is something I've not done before. So that'll be cool. And I have to plan sessions for kids and stuff locally. So hopefully that will start soon. 
Kira  
We’ve learned there's just so many ideas, we've got a notebook full with different ideas in it. I think that's the good thing about being friends as well outside of it. We enjoy being together, we enjoy working together. And even though currently we are physically apart from each other, we're finding ways around it. 
 
What would it have been like if there had been no Stage Directions? How were networks developed and strengthened for you and by extension, for Salford?
Kira 
Completely different! We would have no connections to local artists like Thick Skin, Girl Gang etc. We wouldn't be connected to anyone in the industry, we wouldn't have known anyone, and I think we wouldn't have been as inspired as we were. We keep making jokes that the Lowry feels like a second home now. Because we know this space inside out, because we've been in every room and we've been in every rehearsal space and without Stage Directions, we wouldn't have a space, there'd be no connections to local theatre. We think we won the lottery getting involved with Stage Directions. Stage Directions let us have a voice. It kind of gave us room to grow and to explore ourselves in a safe way, rather than just being shut down. Yeah, it would be very different. 
April  
If Stage Directions wasn't a thing, I don't know where I'd be now. Before, starting a theatre company was something you thought of but never did, never seemed possible. Because of the support and how we'd seen these companies working, we were like, well, it's possible. And it made it possible for us. So I don't know, if Downside would have been a thing, if Stage Directions hadn’t been a thing.