Each of our participating partners created a new ensemble, or furthered working with one that already exists. They then all spent several months making a play about an issue that concerns us. The issue could, for example, be climate change, or migration, or any gender or LGBTQ+ concern. Whatever the issue chosen, it must be one that the ensemble feels is important in their locality. It should be about a change that the group would like to see occur in their area. In addition, the issue we each choose to make a play about should be relevant to a wider audience – not just to a local one. After the first meeting, the themes we discovered included colonialism, societal pressure on youth, mental health, banality, and brutality within society.

However, let's take an example of Alcohol and Violence, which might explore what happens in our locality when young people’s anger is fueled by alcohol. The play would then be relevant at a national level as well as a local one, and indeed at a European level, as many countries are experiencing high levels of youth violence caused by alcohol. So the play might spotlight the problems experienced by the young people in the ensemble. But it would also aim to suggest change, new policies, regulation, or a cultural shift that might alleviate or solve the problem.
 
In this case, the ensemble would like to present their ideas for change to policy makers, or law makers, as well as to their community, in the hope of increasing the pressure for the kind of social change they’d like to see happening. The play itself might not overtly suggest ideas for change. But the discussions with policy makers afterwards would do this.  

We aim to create plays that can be staged where change-makers can see it. This might mean, for example, making short plays that are performed in cars and which can be staged in the car-park of a national parliament. Or making one larger piece than can be staged in the assembly rooms or chambers of a national ministry. It could involve making a play to be staged on the streets or park outside a political establishment. In each case we will learn how to approach policy-makers in order to make it attractive for them to come to see the play.  

We will also learn how best to engage those change-makers in discussion afterwards – perhaps through post-show discussions, a seminar or other means of dialogue.