IN a project supporting celebrations of 100 years of women’s achievements in the Highlands, three Eden Court CREATIVE youth drama groups in Golspie, Nairn and Inverness will perform re-enactments of suffragette meetings that took place locally prior to WW1.
Before each performance, there will be a short procession with banners in the streets and between the re-enacted public meetings the groups will travel by train, in period costume, tracing the journey of the original suffragettes.
Says a spokesperson: “When the Workers Educational Association (WEA) began to research the history of the fight for women’s rights in the Highlands, they found no books or articles about the women’s suffrage movement in the Highlands but, by looking at newspapers and reports in suffrage journals, they discovered that the movement was, in fact, very active in the Highlands.
“The first wave of activity was from 1868 to 1874, then again from 1907 to 1914 and both involved meetings in towns and villages connected by the Highland rail line.
“The rail link brought the groups together and the speakers who addressed the meetings, including the militant, Emily Pankhurst, who addressed a meeting in Nairn.”
Eden Court’s drama artist, John Batty, said: “The groups are rehearsing short scenes and speeches based on the WEA research and it is a really good starting point for creating drama to have a variety of letters, newspaper articles and reports on the historical events and personalities.
“Often, in youth drama, we are making up scenes and characters based on young people’s contemporary lives; but drama can be a very powerful tool to encourage people to look at another period of their history.
“The fight for women’s rights is still a contemporary issue and our group members are finding it amazing that women were still fighting for the vote 100 years ago. Also, it is very relevant to many other countries in the world today where women still have no rights.”
The free public performances will take place on Friday the 31st of July in Nairn (outside Rosebank Primary School, 11.30am ), Inverness (in Falcon Square 12.30pm ) and Golspie (in the beach car park at 4.20pm).
ENDS
For further information, interview requests or to arrange picture opportunities, please contact Eden Court Marketing Department / marketing@eden-court.co.uk / 01463 239 841
Notes to editors
- Eden Court is the largest multi-arts venue in Scotland. It re-opened in November 2007 following an extensive redevelopment programme, which saw the addition of two purpose built cinemas, a brand new flexible second theatre space and two dance and education studios.
- Eden Court is the only theatre in Scotland to offer Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) courses in Drama and Dance. These are extracurricular courses, which offer pupils from across Highland the opportunity to study at Eden Court for an SQA Higher Dance, Drama or Intermediate 2 exams. Aside from Eden Court, there is only one school in the Highlands where pupils can sit SQA Higher Drama exams.
MEDIA RELEASE issued by Eden Court Theatre & Cinema. You too can post your story ideas for journalists (aka press or media releases), on allmediascotland.com. Email here for more information.
Check out twitter.com/nonstopstories for your very own media releases feed…
Check out too twitter.com/allTheatrePR. Also, twitter.com/allInvernessPR.
To catch up on all the media releases recently posted on to allmediascotland.com, you need only click the link icon that you see towards the bottom right of our two media release ‘gateway boxes’.
It’s this icon, here. It’s your route straight into the rich archive.
—
Eden Court contact details…
Contact: Teresa Bendoris
Phone: 01463239841
Email: marketing@eden-court.co.uk
Website: http://www.eden-court.co.uk
