Creative
Britons Award Citation
[This
is the text of the nomination for an award under the Creative Britons Scheme in
1998]
Peter Wynne‑Willson
has spent most of his working life in Birmingham, involved in, setting up and
sustaining a wide range of projects and organisations devoted to bringing the
arts to large numbers of young people and community audiences, and building
links between schools and artists. His work has also stimulated and encouraged
many other arts practitioners in work with children and young people.
Peter came to
Birmingham with his parents in 1970, as a schoolchild. After a period working
as an actor in Glasgow, and then studying drama at Manchester University, he
returned to Birmingham in 1981, where he has remained ever since.
On his return in 1981
Peter knew he wanted to work in theatre for young people. There was no theatre‑in‑education
company in Birmingham at that time, so he took the decision to set one up,
persuading a fellow student from Manchester to come to the city to help him
with the venture. Thus, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company was born, with
the aim of providing a high quality service to schools, colleges, and community
venues, both in Birmingham and the West Midlands region.
Peter stayed with the
Company until l991, keeping it going through a time when many other such
theatre companies were closing. In the
early stages this was achieved partly by subsidising it with work at weekends
[for Central Television as a warm‑up man] while the quality and
commitment of Big Brum's work gradually made the case for a proper funding
base.
In the ten years that
Peter was with Big Brum as actor‑teacher and Artistic Director, the
Company established itself as a valued resource in local schools and
communities, with more than thirty original projects. All the work was highly
interactive, and included a number of significant innovations ‑ in
particular, the development of the 'Rent‑a‑Role' method, the use of
drama across the secondary curriculum (notably in Maths and Science), and the
use of in‑role discussion with adult audiences. In addition to performing
and directing, Peter began to develop his own writing with the company. Of
eighteen professionally produced plays that he has written, five were for Big
Brum. These included works that explored aspects of Birmingham's history, and
toured to community venues as well as to schools, thus reaching a wide range of
audiences and enabling them to reflect on and learn from episodes in their own
and their City's past.
Big Brum Theatre in
Education Company survives to this day, and has won an international reputation
for the highest standard of artistic and educational work with young people and
community audiences. Peter Wynne‑Willson remains an active advocate for
Big Brum, and has an ongoing commitment to the organisation through his
membership of its management committee.
Peter's dedication to
young people and theatre, and his belief in the educational power of theatre,
has also led him to play a key role in establishing two organisations to
further the links between arts and education. In 1985 he was instrumental in
setting up the Theatre in Health Education Trust, one of the very first efforts
to attract funds for health‑related theatre in education. The success of
this beginning is illustrated by the fact that there is now a flourishing
theatre in health education movement throughout the country, and the Theatre in
Health Education Trust itself is still thriving.
The second
organisation which Peter was involved in establishing, in 1988, was the
Birmingham Education Arts Forum (BEAF). The aim was to make links between
artists and schools, arid it was set up at a time when the arts and education
departments of local councils often had no contact with each other. BEAF was
the first organisation of its kind in the country, and was used as a model for
further such developments both in the West Midlands region and by the Arts
Council of England. BEAF is still very active in Birmingham, promoting
awareness of the arts in education, developing models of good practice, and
encouraging collaboration between
schools and artists, and Peter has continued his involvement with the
organisation as one of its Executive Officers.
Since leaving Big
Brum, Peter has been working as a freelance writer, director, and performer
with several other young people's theatre companies in Birmingham and beyond,
including Greenwich and Lewisham YPT, the Half Moon YPT, Merseyside YPT and
Gazebo TIE Company. His own body of
work is impressive, including the much admired 'Heads or Tails' for Big Brum,
'Roy', 'The Broken Peace', Nora's Ark' and 'From….' He received a special Arts Council Writers Bursary in 1997, and
the Sacred Earth Drama Award in 1998 for 'El Mono' a children's musical about
the animals of the Andes. He has also
undertaken countless projects himself in schools in the City, as well as across
the West Midlands. These have been as
writer-in-residence, or director or co-ordinator, working in a wide range of
ways, but almost always revolving around the creation of new work by and with
young people. This work has continued
to involve him constantly in activities directly with young people, as well as
with teachers and other artists. He also works widely with community groups,
and with people with learning difficulties.
In addition, Peter
has been on the Birmingham LEA's 'Teachers and Artists Working Together' panel,
since its inception in 1993. He is also Education Consultant to Birmingham
Opera Company, with a brief to devise and oversee their education work over
several years, helping to involve new community audiences in the most
challenging and exciting opera work possible.
Since 1996 he has been Education Adviser to the Birmingham Hippodrome,
writing the theatre's education policy, which forms a major part of the
theatre's huge redevelopment. Work for
the Hippodrome has also included pioneering projects alongside Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera.
The legacies of
Peter's nineteen years work are not only the continuation of the organisations
he established, and the large numbers of young people both he and those
organisations have worked with; but also the many people in arts, education and
health whose own work has been enriched and developed by their involvement in
the projects set up by Peter. Very many have gone on themselves to develop and
build arts work with children of all ages and with communities throughout the
region. In addition, Peter has passed on his experience and expertise through
lecturing at the Universities of Warwick and Wolverhampton, and as an external
examiner for the Central School of Speech and Drama. Recently he has been breaking new ground for a term as Visiting
Professor of Theatre-in-Education at the Korean National University of the
Arts, in Seoul. This visit was arranged
in order to establish the very first TIE course in South Korea, and is likely
to mark the beginning of a wide-ranging collaboration.
Peter Wynne‑Willson
sees all his work as dedicated to the furtherance of the use of arts in
education. He has said "I took the decision to stay in young people's
theatre and in Birmingham out of the sense of belonging that I have found in
both areas. I have always found it easy to avoid temptations towards work of
'higher status' (in the eyes of many), simply because I enjoy what I do so
much. It has a real straightforward
purpose about it, which much of the 'mainstream' of theatre work does not hold
for me.'
Peter Wynne‑Willson
is widely recognised in the region as having made highly significant and
lasting contributions to the development of theatre for young people and local
communities, to the practice and philosophy of arts education, to strong and
productive relationships between artists and schools, and to the enrichment of
young people's learning and lives.