United House and the Donmar Warehouse

Nurturing young talent

United House has sponsored the Donmar Warehouse Theatre for the past 15 years, from supporting its West End season to helping to develop talent among new directors. One of the most rewarding elements of the partnership has been working together on the Donmar’s Education Programme, providing enriching opportunities for school students to work with professional theatre makers.

As a specialist social housing contractor and developer, we believe in investing in the local communities where we work, so we chose schools based in some of these boroughs to participate in the programme.

The programme began with students from Lambeth College, Jo Richardson School in Dagenham, and the Beacon School in Banstead working with Donmar practitioners and Directors, including the writer and director of one of its latest productions, SALT, ROOT AND ROE. The students were introduced to the basic building blocks of playwriting, and took inspiration from TV, newspapers and their daily lives to begin constructing their own scripts. At the end of the day, they were sent away with a simple but challenging brief – to write an original play, to be performed by professional actors.

Over the course of three more workshops, the participants’ scripts were honed into small but finely crafted pieces of theatre, with topics ranging from alcoholism to a twenty-first century Robin Hood. The plays were then considered by a Donmar panel of judges, before a selection of winning scripts was made.

The project culminated at Trafalgar Studios on 29 November 2011. Throughout the day a group of professional actors rehearsed the students’ scripts, before everyone who had taken part in the project, as well as an invited audience including cast member Imogen Stubbs (above), arrived at Trafalgar Studio 1. Seven of the students’ plays were performed in front of the writers and their friends, as well as an audience of professional theatre makers and actors.

Afterwards all 75 students then watched a performance of Tim Rice’s SALT, ROOT AND ROE. The students enjoyed the production, and all the actors afterwards commented on what an exciting, responsive and enjoyable audience they had been.

Following the success of the programme, which started in 2010, we are looking to build and expand our work with the Donmar Warehouse and to deliver an even more extensive series of events for 2012, alongside the third of the Donmar’s seasons at Trafalgar Studios.

Please click here to view our Donmar Education brochure.