Passion for the Planet – first in Gateshead and then in Dorking!
Passion for the Planet is a multi cultural, multi faith exploration of creation and the environmental crisis. Initially a response to a need for a community project which could be delivered under Covid restrictions the project grew into something much more – and after the initial run in Gateshead was produced in Dorking as part of a Mole Valley wide project involving several primary and secondary schools, a number of community and business groups, the Arts Alive festival, and Dorking Quaker Meeting as co production partners
Origins
Theatre company Damn Cheek Productions were working with Gateshead churches on a community based Mystery Play in Gateshead in 2020 and Tony was involved as a co producer. The Mystery Play involved a large cast of amateur actors led by a couple of professionals all working closely together. When Covid restrictions meant that this was no longer possible, Damn Cheek went back to the drawing board and Tony suggested a production based on creation and the environment.
Working closely with director and dramaturg Darren Cheek, Tony produced a script with elements of sketch, song, shadow work, puppetry and dance while still leaving space for the appreciation of the creative work emanating from the schools, colleges, Age UK service users and a range of members of the wider community. This work included poetry, letters, masks, puppets, ceramics and more.
Themes
The central themes of the piece are
- the Creation stories of the various faiths, and of none
- the lessons that can be drawn from these stories in the context of the environmental crisis
- a shared humanity
The production is an all age promenade piece built around the specific site but flexible enough to be adapted for performance elsewhere. The small cast, which includes actor musicians, guide the audience through rooms which feature a story teller, three puppets in an animal only pub, a seascape, audio and visual as well as entertaining and challenging sketches and songs and the emergence of the Pollution Monster.
The team
The team for the initial production, which ran in Christ Church, Felling, Gateshead in July/August 2021 included director Darren Cheek, designer and stage manager Paul Batten, Design consultant Chris de Wilde and cast members Laurence Saunders, Mahsa Bahary and Eloise Kay who also contributed original music. The Mole Valley production runs from 21st to 28th October 2023 and the cast is Darren Cheek, Karen Spicer and Helen Potter, with Stephen Thompson as stage manager, Chris de Wilde as designer, and Darren Cheek as director.
The overall project, from conception to emerging fully fledged into the world was again guided and developed by Darren and Tony in conjunction with representatives of Dorking Quakers and Nower Productions forming the Core group and a Steering Group from the wider community. Tony is currently (November 2023) collating and editing a legacy book featuring poems written by schoolchildren and by local writers as parti of the Moe Valley project.
Funding partners for the project were the Sylvia Waddilove Foundation, the Mole Valley District Council Prosperity Fund, Surrey County Council, Dorking Quaker Meeting and West Weald Quaker Meeting
