Wimborne Community Theatre celebrating grant-funding

Wimborne Community Theatre has been awarded an Arts Council England grant to support the development of a new production about the First World War in Wimborne, which will take place in summer 2016.

Following two years of research and a pilot performance in 2013 in Wimborne’s Forest Garden, the group is preparing now to create a larger-scale immersive theatre experience, in which the audience will walk from venue to venue in the town centre discovering scenes about the lives of Wimborne residents during the First World War. WCT is a group of East Dorset residents  of all ages who devise original performances set in unusual outdoor sites or non-theatre buildings, working in partnership with artists and arts/heritage organisations. The grant will support the involvement of Dorset-based artists: musical director Karen Wimhurst; movement director Rosalind Conlon; sound producer Adrian Newton; and theatre director Tony Horitz. Also participating for the second time in a WCT production, will be a group of students studying Costume and Performance Design at Arts University Bournemouth.

On behalf of WCT, Creative Producer, Gill Horitz said, ‘”We are thrilled to be awarded an Arts Council grant to enable us create a new site-specific show based on the themes and ideas we identified during our research and public meetings held in partnership with Priest’s House Museum. Members of the public brought precious and significant objects relating to family members during that period.”

WCT welcomes other local people to join this new project, either as performers, to help back stage, or to bring ideas and knowledge about people living in Wimborne during the First World War. WCT’s next show will be its 20th site-specific production. The group was founded in 1991.To find out more, email Gill Horitz at gill.horitz@talk21.com or contact through the Wimborne Community Theatre website:  www.wimbornecommunitytheatre.co.uk