Jodie Lamb shares her experience of encouraging diverse audiences into Oldham Coliseum Theatre.
Oldham Coliseum Theatre has a strong track record in reaching a loyal non-traditional blue-collar audience for its main house shows. Building upon this success the theatre has recently inaugurated several programmes aimed at diversifying audiences and increasing accessibility to its community and education events. The theatre sees itself very much as a resource for the whole of the community of Oldham, and is focussing heavily on encouraging children and their families, as well as a more culturally diverse catchment, to develop an interest in all that the theatre has to offer.
Oldham is a diverse town, but its culturally varied inhabitants are geographically segregated from one another. The large Asian population, mainly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, mostly lives in two or three wards in the town. The schools in these wards are almost exclusively Asian. In 30 of Oldhams primary schools, at least 80% of pupils are from ethnic minorities and in two secondary schools they represent 97% and 77% of the student population. Conversely, in two other secondary schools in Oldham, 95% of the pupils are of British white origin. Because the communities do not naturally mix at school there is a lack of understanding and mutual respect for other cultures.
Bringing new audiences through the doors of the theatre will never be a matter of simply inviting people in. The Coliseum is keen to develop relationships with different communities through a strong programme of education and outreach work, and to programme work that reflects the interests and voices of those communities.
In October 2006, the Coliseum launched BANG! (British Asian New Generation) a new writing competition seeking compelling work which reflects the British Asian experience in all its facets. In partnership with the BBCs creative writing project, Writersroom, and London-based theatre company Tamasha, the competition attracted 67 entrants, with a good proportion of high quality submissions. Competition winner, Aisha Kahn, and runners-up, Ishy Din and Punam Ramchurn, received BBC bursaries and are currently working closely with a dramaturg to develop their plays toward rehearsed readings as part of the Coliseums July writing festival. BANG! will include an outreach element involving groups from across Oldham and Greater Manchester working with the Coliseum on writing and storytelling projects, with a specific focus on families.
For the Coliseum, BANG! presents many advantages. The theatre benefits enormously from its partnership with Tamasha, gaining great insights from their experience and expertise in developing work with South Asian artists for South Asian audiences. The continuing relationship with the competition winners has allowed the theatre to support emerging local artists in their writing and to give them a further understanding of the theatre. These relationships are particularly important to the Coliseum since the eventual aim is to be in a position to commission work for a diverse audience for a regional and national tour.
In 2006, the Coliseum started programming work for children and families as part of Coliseum@, a satellite venue at Uppermill Civic Hall in Saddleworth. This venue was selected in part because it was thought that given the relative affluence, and social demographic of this area of Oldham, it would represent a fairly straightforward pilot location. Coliseum@ has been a very successful venture, with audiences and popularity increasing month on month. Currently the theatre is in the process of looking at some of Oldhams more traditionally South Asian wards, to find a suitable venue for presenting further childrens work. It hopes that the outreach work which is being carried out will encourage people, who wouldnt necessarily identify themselves as theatre-goers, through the doors.
This has been an exciting and revelatory year for the Coliseum, and it has taken steps into promoting inclusion and developing a more diverse audience. But what becomes increasingly apparent, is that this may well be a slow and sustained process, which we must, to a certain extent, allow the audience to dictate.
Jodie Lamb is Head of Education at Oldham Coliseum Theatre.
e: jodielamb@coliseum.org.uk;
w: http://coliseum.org.uk
If you have conducted similar projects or had success in this area, the Coliseum would be glad to hear from you to share your experiences.