Free Theatre's Education Programme introduces audiences and the wider public to our theatre practice building on recent successes such as Ars Acustica (2019), Alice (2018), The Black Rider (2017), Frankenstein (2016), The Mauricio Kagel Project (2015), Footprints/Tapuwae (2015), Kafka's Amerika (2014), Canterbury Tales (2013) and The Earthquake in Chile (2011), which saw the company working together with the local community on large-scale projects. Free Theatre members have extensive teaching experience at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Public workshops and classes are specifically focused around movement, voice, mask and puppetry, and acting for camera and we are proud to be a learning destination for Children's University.
Children and young people obviously have so much to say and express and I really feel that the Free Theatre Education Programme enables them to do this in a thoughtful, considered and highly relevant way. A commitment to quality of production is balanced with an unswerving respect for an authentic creative process - something which seems to me as a parent to be very educational and affirming, and to my daughter to be enormous fun.
Annabel Calder (Parent)
"As a Theatre Educator myself, I was very impressed by both the process and the product I saw within the youth training programmes that my daughter participated in. What struck me most was the way the young people were given credit for creativity and intelligence and allowed to explore the form in a collaborative environment…. As a past National Assessment Moderator with NZQA, I can honestly say that the intentional development of collaboration and devising skills that I saw in the work of the Free Theatres education programme was of a very high standard. This is rare in my experience ….I also value the Free Theatre’s courage and initiative in engaging with community events and moving theatre from beyond the confines of a black box and 2 Acts."
Learne McArthur, B.A, Dip. Tchg, Dip Drama.
Learne McArthur, B.A, Dip. Tchg, Dip Drama.