From Brecht to Salford's Ewan MacColl, socialist theatre has a massive history, and a new course at the Working Class Movement Library run by the Workers Education Association (WEA) intends to plough it to the max and re-ignite it by constructing a new live piece of cred theatre.
The course will take in the likes of legends Brecht, Augusto Boal, 7:84, Unity Theatre, Dario Fo, Agitprop as well as other important aspects of the Socialist Theatre tradition. Hopefully it will include Ewan MacColl's fantastic contribution and North West Spanner which was active during Salford's rent strikes in the 70s.
The ten week course, the organisers state, aims "to not only explore some of the essential ingredients of good, lively political theatre, it asks you to have a go at it yourself…At the end of the course, students will put their heads together to see if they can construct a piece of Socialist Theatre relevant to today's situation using some of the techniques they have learnt during the course'.
The course is ideal for writers, activists or those just interested in learning about Socialist Theatre.
Socialist Theatre Course
Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford M5 4WX
Tues October 4th for 10 weeks 7-9pm
The course costs £31 but is FREE to anyone on benefits.
For further details or to book a place phone 0771 684 8894 or email tomm562002@yahoo.com
* Main photo shows Ewan MacColl in his production about media manipulation