Left to right: Dr Paul Cowie, and Brad McCormick (Artist Director) and Katy Vanden (Producer) of Cap-a-Pie
This is an excerpt of a blog first posted on the HASS Research Impact Blog.
Dr Paul Cowie is a Research Assistant in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Paul’s research focuses on community planning and community representation in the planning process. Cap-a-Pie bring together professional theatre makers and communities to co-create theatre and foster learning and thinking through a democratic creative process.
How can you get 30 people to spend three hours on a Monday night discussing community involvement in planning? The answer may be through theatre.
It is well accepted by both academics and practitioners that there is a limit to how much consultation a community can take. The dreaded ‘consultation fatigue’ is now a common feature of both research fieldwork and planning engagement efforts. Dr Paul Cowie and theatre company, Cap-a-Pie, have produced a new piece of theatre, The Town Meeting, which has shown that taking an alternative approach can re-engage communities in research in a way that traditional forms of engagement do not. The Town Meeting has generated a rich resource of research material as well as engaging a network of co-researchers who have signed up to be involved in the project in the future.
The play was performed in 6 communities in the spring of 2015, and toured again this month visiting Leeds and Sheffield. The venues ranged from traditional and community based theatres to community centres and village halls. Over 160 people have now been to see the play, including HRH Princess Eugenie of York who enjoyed an excerpt of the play when she recently visited the University. The play will also tour again in April 2016, visiting Keswick, Doncaster and Washington.
The project has recently won the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement in the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence.
The story of how the play was developed is available via Cap-a-Pie’s Town Hall podcast.
[You can read the full blog post on the HASS Research Impact Blog.]
The Town Meeting