A Visit to Chickenshed Theatre Company

This week, we took a break from our usual show to visit the amazing Chickenshed Theatre Company, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

We got a special tour, went behind the scenes, and met some of the fantastic team who make it all happen.

Our guide for the afternoon was Matthew Lyons, head of Young Company, and we also had the pleasure of meeting Maya and Shiloh, who shared their love for this incredible theatre.

We were blown away by how Chickenshed celebrates inclusivity and brings people of all abilities and backgrounds together through the power of theatre.

It was an inspiring and fun day. Let us tell you all about it!

For more information on Chickenshed click here.

Project Managers: Andrea Rai & Phil Powell.

Editor: Phil Powell

Project Managers: Andrea Rai & Phil Powell
Editor: Phil Powell

Huge thanks to the National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund for supporting our Dis-labled podcast. Learn more about their amazing work: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

All enquiries: podcast@communityfocus.co.uk
Website: https://www.communityfocus.co.uk/

Theme Music: Rastko Rasic & the students of Community FocusOther Music: Jazzy Frenchy by ⁠⁠⁠Benjamin Tissot

Transcript

Phillip R 0:07

Committee for good. Come here. We're here for you. With me and you. All right. Our foot of you. At five off. Yes. We can review. We're here for you. Yes. Our point of view. Our five years.

Gila 0:52

Community focus is an art centre for children and adults with disabilities. We are based in Faboa Burnett, North London, and offers collection of creative and well-being activities for all ages.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Matthew.

SPEAKER_08 1:17

Maya.

SPEAKER_04 1:19

Gylo. Babak. Amia. Jonathan. Hava.

Gila 1:25

Booby. Gila. Carol. Vicki. Andrea.

Phillip R 1:32

Phil. Ah.

SPEAKER_07 1:35

Philip.

Carol 1:45

This week we took a break from our usual show to visit the amazing Chicken Shed Theatre Company, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We got a special tour, went behind the scenes, and met some of the fantastic team who made it all happen. Our guide for the afternoon was Matthew Lyons, head of young company. We also had a pleasure of meeting Maya and Shiloh, who shared their love for this incredible theatre. We were blown away by how Chicken Shed celebrates inclusivity and brings people all abilities and backgrounds together through the power of theatre. It was an inspiring and fun day. Let us tell you all about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 2:53

Carol, how long have you been going to Chicken Shed?

Carol 2:57

Uh I think since 2021 or late 2020.

SPEAKER_07 3:03

What sort of stuff have you been doing then?

Carol 3:06

Um performances, shows, umly like summer shows and Christmas shows.

SPEAKER_14 3:20

Right, well, shall we have a little talk? Lovely. You know what? Why don't we go upstairs, dump half bags? So you've you've got everything down, and then and then we can we can just go to the three and one room up there.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yes. Thank you.

SPEAKER_14 3:37

My name is Matthew, so I'm Matthew Lyons, and I'm the head of young company here at Chicken Shed. So I oversee hello, I oversee all of our participatory activities. So um Chicken Shed uh really focuses on young people. Uh we focus on lots of different ages. Many people come through its doors each week, and probably about a thousand people on any given week. So we we have a young company of about 600 young people aged between uh five and twenty one, so they come weekly for their workshops and rehearsals. We have a student cohort, uh five different year groups, five cohorts starting at the age of 16, uh, and they get their education here, so their post-16 education through a BTEC in the first instance, and then a degree in the second uh instance, and there's about 150 students. Um and then we have uh drop-in activities every Sunday uh called Sunday Shared, and that's for um young people and adults at different classes throughout the day. We have a an intergenerational workshop that runs called The Space Between Us, so they meet weekly, uh, and that that's sort of um multi-age groups. Um, and then we have all of our staff, and there's about 50 of us. Um so yeah, about a thousand people on any given week, and that's without any audiences. Uh at the moment with the Christmas show, we we have then uh and with the two different Christmas shows, many audiences coming as well. So I'm Matthew.

SPEAKER_08 5:10

I'm Maya. Um I've been at Art Children's Show Theatre Company since I was about seven, eight years old. I've gone through our children's theatre, youth theatre, and then I volunteered as a facilitator for a while, and then I was lucky enough uh to be asked to work here, and I work within our young company, um writing and directing a lot of our youth-led um projects, as well as working within the equality, diversity and inclusion stream at Chicken Sheds. Um so I help um support the internal staff programme as well as doing outreach um training.

SPEAKER_10 5:55

And I'm Shiloh, uh I've been a chicken shed since 2018, uh when I was first a student here. Uh studied just on the degree programme here um until 2021, and I've been working here ever since. So my main role is um I'm a mentor. So uh I support a lot of the students within lessons to make sure that whether it's through work or just making sure that they're okay, just that their well-being is okay. Um issues here and there, but there rarely ever is any. Um and I yeah, I'm obviously in a lot of the performances here.

SPEAKER_14 6:30

And we're all involved at the moment in a big project for our 50th anniversary. So Chicken Shed is 50 uh this year. So um 1974 was when the company first uh was founded as the Chicken Shed Theatre Workshop. Uh and now as Chicken Shed uh Company, Theatre Company, we um so we started, you might wonder why we're called Chicken Shed, and that is because the first rehearsal room we we had was actually an old barn which used to have chickens in it.

SPEAKER_07 7:03

What happened to the chickens?

SPEAKER_14 7:04

Well the chickens, I don't know what happened for the chickens, but uh the barn apparently is still uh still standing um somewhere in in about four miles from here. Uh but but yes, in in and then 30 years ago we got this theatre built, so that was in 1994. Uh so 1974 we were founded, and then in 1994 we we we were lucky enough to get a lottery uh grant and we built the uh different phases of this building between 1994 and 1998. Uh and then and then yeah, in nine in 2024, we are 50 years old. So myself and Mayor and Shiloh have all been involved in a project called Echoes, which has been looking back at our past uh and as part of our past, yeah. And uh one of the things that uh Shiloh and Mayor have been specifically working on is collecting oral history, uh, so using a machine much like the one we've got going on here, um, and uh different devices to record the oral history of people who were really key at different stages of Chicken Shed's uh uh development, uh, so that we can have that as an archive and we can then give that over to Enfield, uh which is the borough that Chicken Shed is in, uh we can give that over to uh Enfield Museums and they will then put that in a special archive store, which it will then be accessible to not only the Enfield community but anyone who wants to go and have a listen at to some of the oral histories of people at Chicken Shed. Alright, so who would like to go for a a tour around the uh round the building?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Oh we redo, we do, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 8:50

Right, and we'll just have a look at a couple of our rehearsal rooms and then we'll go into our backstage area, then we'll go past our dressing rooms, and then we'll come uh back into uh the uh the the auditorium and we'll see about five minutes of a dress rehearsal that's going on, then we'll have a look at our timeline and then we'll come back up here. Great, okay, right, let's go. So this was a room that was built in 1998, so in the second phase of our theatre being built. So everything along this corridor uh is 1998, and everything that side of the building is 1994. Um so this studio theatre at the moment it just looks like a regular room, and at the moment it's used for two of our character groups as their rehearsal room and their sort of uh holding area, so that all of our casts come in their costumes, so they don't need to get changed or anything. But they come in here, they relax, they chat, they warm up, they rehearse some of their scenes, they have their lunches, uh, and then they uh they uh go to stage from here. But this room can also be very quickly turned into a um uh a black box theatre. So, yeah, this is our dance studio, but it's used for so much more than just dancing. But the reason this is called our dance studio is because it's got a sprung floor, so there's a slight give on the floor, which means this floor here, if you if you bounce up and down, there's a light there's no swimming pool. It's not like it's uh there's a great there's a great film called It's a Wonderful Life, which you must all watch every Christmas, but uh but there's a bit where they're all dancing on the dance floor, and then that opens up and there's a swimming pool underneath. It's like cracking dances. So yes, this is uh but at the moment this is where the pirates hang out. So, Carol, this is your uh hold in an area, this is your rehearsal room. So the pirates hang out in here while they're waiting to go on stage for Peter Pan. So it's a bit of a bit of a pirate fest normally. Uh yeah, I'm a captain. Um and again, we sometimes use this for performances. Again, those windows again, the same thing, complete blackout, and then uh a tiny little lighting rig, but we can make this into a space where we have performances as well. So this is our main dressing room for our core cast, so it's got 800 cast members in over five performing rotors, but there's a core team who do everything, and I've got in here I've got Kara who's having a well-earned rest, and Lucy May. So Kara down there, Kara down there is uh doing every nearly every show because they also have some alternates who who do uh from our students who do a couple of their parts for about four shows. But Kara Lightshilo is doing every show, and Kara's also the vocal coach, uh put a lot of the arrangements together, yeah, the harmonies and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Um, she's very sensible, she's very sensible.

SPEAKER_14 11:52

And then this is Lucy May, who doesn't say anything in the show, uh, doesn't use her voice at all in the show because Lucy play plays Tinkerbell. Um so uh Lucy May's uh voice is some little bells that just come out. But uh but yeah, Cara, how's the show been going so far?

SPEAKER_11 12:09

So we had our preview week last week, which is um where we all get to learn the show very, very well, and this week's our first like like proper proper week. So yeah, I think everyone's been working really hard. It literally does take a massive, massive team um on stage and off stage. But yeah, it's been a really special Christmas show because it's our 50th year birthday. Chicken shed's 50 years old. Wow. So it's been really, really, it's been really beautiful. It's been a really great. The reviews we got our we got a four-star review from The Guardian. It was a lovely review. Yeah, and yeah. We all we all know that an a review is just an opinion, but sometimes it's nice to see it's nice to get a nice opinion every now and then.

SPEAKER_14 12:53

And Lucy May, you're in every show, but you you're you're dual rolling, aren't you?

SPEAKER_15 12:57

I am, yeah. So I'm think about and then I'm uh with the lost ones for some of it as well to help with the lost ones and to kind of ferry them around the place. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_14 13:07

So how many lost ones are there in any one rotor?

SPEAKER_15 13:10

Probably about 30, between 25 and 30, I think.

SPEAKER_14 13:12

30, any at any one time, yeah. And they were at age between seven and about twenty in one. And do you get hung from the ceiling?

SPEAKER_15 13:20

No, unfortunately not. I wish, I wish. I do have a swing though. I have a swing. So my swing's short. I do a bit. I do, yeah. So I got taught how to do it and then um yeah, and now I I do it for myself. Yes, yes, yeah, I do actually. So later I'm a lost one, so I'm gonna be a glittery lost one, but that's alright, the price we pay.

SPEAKER_07 13:50

Um, how long have you been doing this sort of work?

SPEAKER_15 13:53

So um I've been at Chicken Shed for about 16 years. Sixteen years. Sixteen years. So I started in CT1s and then I went all the way up um all the way through youth theatre, and then now I work here. So I've been working here for maybe about two or three years. Um, but yeah, I've been here for for a very long time and hope to be here for a long time more. So yeah.

SPEAKER_14 14:13

And that's quite normal at Chicken Shed. Lots of people join when they're children and and work through different programmes, different training routes.

SPEAKER_15 14:21

Bethany our choreographer, she's been here since she was very young.

SPEAKER_14 14:27

Yeah. Um so yeah, lots of people come when they're young and then work their way through, um and you know, and and then often develop into roles and careers. So yeah, it's not un uncommon to have someone join at the age of five and you're still with them, and you see them grow and you work with them through lots and lots of different projects, and then you really benefit, and that's how chicken shed evolves. It's it's how it's uh always gonna evolve. And as we sort of fall off the other end, there'll be people coming coming to replace us who will have been training through, and yeah, it's it's quite unique and very important for how chicken. Yeah, very much so. We are gonna make our way back stage now.

unknown 15:20

Hi guys, hi.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Looking forward to hearing your podcast. So this bit is these are all different Christmas stories. This is about the first time a lion sees snow in the jungle. So it follows uh it thinks it's the Christmas star, but it's actually snowing. So this is uh called um uh Christmas in the jungle.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

So Ruth, it's got a lot of. We have a captive audience or a private box.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

We're gonna run it, come over to the mood, we just need to light it.

SPEAKER_14 16:47

Right, so I think you've got some questions. Right, who wants to go first?

SPEAKER_07 16:52

How long have you worked in the chicken shed?

SPEAKER_14 16:55

Um, I have worked at Chicken Shed for 26 years, but I've been involved in Chicken Shed a bit longer. I joined Chicken Shed when I was six years old. So uh I was in the children's theatre and the youth theatre, and then after university, this place was built. So I uh I did a bit of um part-time work and then a full-time job came along. So I've been here a while, but may I?

SPEAKER_08 17:21

Um I've been a part of Chicken Shed Theatre Company since I was seven, and then I went through our children's theatre streams, went through our youth theatre streams. I then volunteered when I was like 18, 19, and then I got a part-time job at the age of 20, 21. So I've been at Chicken Shed overall how many years is that? 15 years? 16 years? Around that.

SPEAKER_10 17:51

Um and I've um only been uh a part of Chicken Shed since 2018 because I didn't know it existed before then. And I've been working here since uh 2021, so three years coming up to four years now. Uh and yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

What's the best part of Chicken Shed?

SPEAKER_10 18:10

I'd say the people. I think in somewhere like Chicken Shed, it's such a community um and uh participatory um led approach. Um a lot of the work we do here is um start is either comes from the young people here or has um comes from someone's lived experience, which is someone's um uh story from them growing up or just an event in their life. And we tend to make theatre based on that or just workshops or um just to learn about each other. So I say the most important part of Chicken Shed is definitely the people and that we meet everyone you every day.

SPEAKER_14 18:43

What's the next show you're thinking about?

SPEAKER_08 18:48

Um we are currently uh embarking another year of participating in the uh National Theatre Connections Festival. Uh we are working on a play called No Regrets, and it's about a 60, 65-page um script about people's lived experience and feelings towards regret. And there's about 20 youth theatre participants and about five, six students, and we're going to start rehearsing in December. We're gonna have the initial workshops in December and then begin the intensive process uh over January, February. We've got um a slot of five performances in our studio theatre, which you saw earlier, and then we've got a block of rehearsals over Easter, and then we get to perform it again uh at our partner theatre Arts Depot in Finchley. And hopefully, in theory, if all goes well, we may or may not get selected to perform at the National Theatre in the summer. That's what we're working on next.

Gila 19:57

Who invented chicken shed?

SPEAKER_14 20:00

The chicken shed was not invented, but it sort of came about through a conversation. So uh we showed you a photo earlier of our founders, Mary Ward and Joe Collins. So Mary Ward um was a primary school teacher who was uh on maternity leave, had had her, I think it was her second child, and was on maternity leave, and went along to a youth club to help out, a youth club just down the road from here at a church hall, just down the road from where we are now. And Joe Collins was uh was teaching music at that youth club, and they started having a conversation about, you know, uh uh about about working with lots of different types of young people and somewhere that could be open for everyone, a sort of theatre workshop. And really it was it was that idea, and they got on really well, so it was that conversation that led then led to them deciding to start a theatre workshop. Um, and as we said, it's the the first real home it had was in an old barn. So the the the young people uh in the 1970s that went to it started calling it the chicken shed. So that's how chicken shed came about.

SPEAKER_07 21:13

Who's your inspiration?

SPEAKER_10 21:17

Okay, in general, my inspiration is my mum. Uh my mum has been my biggest supporter, has always helped me through everything in life, and without her, I literally wouldn't be here. So I'd say my biggest inspiration is my mum.

SPEAKER_08 21:32

In a chicken shed capacity, I would say that um a a woman called Paula Reese is my inspiration. Uh she has uh cerebral palsy and she did so much for the chicken shed building, and you know, she created theatre and performed on stage like no other. So I would say she inspires me through uh a disability lens. Having a disability and accessing theatre. That would be my inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Why why make chicken shed to people with additional needs?

SPEAKER_08 22:12

I would say in uh I would say in society, if you're someone that is viewed as different, and for the sake of the recording, I'm doing air marks, um, it's I would say it's probably hard to find a space where you're accepted and seen more uh seen for more than uh your physical ability. Um so I would say that chicken shed is in chicken shed is important because it's creating space for people that might not necessarily always have that freedom to express themselves. And I think everyone needs an outlet to to be themselves and feel safe and connected and understood. And I'd say that's the whole ethos of Chicken Shed and why we include everybody in our theatre.

SPEAKER_07 23:10

How do you get involved with Chicken Shed?

SPEAKER_10 23:13

Um we have uh as we have lots of different programs here, we have lots of different ways of getting involved. Um for our students here, um they especially for our degree students, they have to go through a sort of registration process that involves like uh these legalities and formalities, sort of UCAS, which is how they uh uh undertake a university degree. And um for all the other participants it's just through conversation, and then um sometimes they might have to fill in a form maybe or um just come to workshops, but there's not there's never really anything that kind of blocks someone from uh being able to participate. Um it's just people come to watch shows and then they might be invited for a workshop, or um, for our Sunday Shed workshops, for example, you just register online and you can come along or just call up our box office downstairs or send an email, and there's always there's plenty of ways to get involved with Chicken Shed.

SPEAKER_12 24:11

I know we have a violent cease.

SPEAKER_14 24:16

Volunteer vacancies all the time. Chicken Shed works only because we have such a brilliant set of volunteers. I think at the moment we have about 250 registered volunteers, uh, and our volunteers really ensure that we can run our shows uh uh primarily because our biggest volunteer force is our front of house team. Uh so for the Christmas show, we have um everyone who you see out the front helping people to their seats, selling programs, selling merchandise, selling ice cream. Nine times out of ten, there'll be a volunteer who are doing it as part of um you know their want to give back to Chicken Shed. We also have volunteers who support us in lots of different areas. So lots of people uh come uh work in our wardrobe department, or might help with the set painting, uh, or might just help with general maintenance. So we have a volunteer coordinator who coordinates all that, and volunteering is such a key aspect. Chicken shed started with volunteers, it was many years before anyone got paid to work at Chicken Shed, and people just volunteered their time, and then we've developed lots of our youth volunteering into training programs. So um we have young leaders and young mentors who who work with the younger children, and they you know effectively they volunteer their time, but they're they're undergoing training, and they get they get something back from it as well in a in a very sort of real sense, and then they can use that for their next part of their their sort of creative journey or their pastoral journey. So, yeah, we we rely on volunteers hugely.

SPEAKER_12 26:07

Uh it just seems to bring out the best in everyone, chicken shed, and I just wondered what some of the ingredients are that you think are the ingredients working here. Make it so special.

SPEAKER_08 26:23

I'd say collaboration and teamwork is at its core because like speaking from a perspective of someone that was a participant, when when I was in the room, I could do everything, and that was probably the first time that I felt that in my life, because outside of the doors, life obviously feels so limiting, and then you come into this building and it's like there are no barriers and you can do anything, and I think the people within the building facilitate that so well, and then now being like now being the person that is supporting other young people to feel that way, like it does, like it does take a village, like it's not just me that's creating this space, it's all of us, and I feel like that that feeling at its core has like seemed to stay the same. It's like um it's like a gift that keeps on giving. It's like we're all passing the present, and I think that's really beautiful.

Phillip R 27:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 27:43

Ladies and gentlemens, I'd like to thank these pick people for having us here. Thank you very thank you very much.

SPEAKER_14 27:57

Yeah, thanks for coming in.

SPEAKER_10 28:01

It's been lovely to meet you.

Phillip R 28:03

One more big clap for chicken chef. Community focused, community focus, we're here for you. With me and you. We're here for you, yes, all of you.