Raising the Roof: The Journey
Over the past year, we have worked in partnership with Leap Confronting Conflict to deliver a programme of drama and storytelling workshops for care experience young people called Raising the Roof. There have been multiple cohorts working together on Zoom in weekly sessions, culminating in creative sharings including a summer sharing at Brady Arts Centre, an afternoon exploring the care system at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham and an entire filming production week at Lewisham College in October half term.
All of the young people that have taken part in Raising the Roof this past year have lived experience of the care system, and for many, an interest in exploring, discussing and sharing their thoughts and memories of that experience in a creative way. In the usual Playing ON fashion, participants in Raising the Roof created fictional characters, circumstances and stories inspired by real life and took them to the stage and then to the screen last week. Characters and their stories included: Jonathan and his worries at school, Ellie deciding between her dreams or her family and Lily-Rose and her rocky relationship with her Mum and sister.
Despite the ever changing weather and the always fluid shooting schedule in Lewisham during half term, the young people and creatives teamed together to reimagine their characters for a digital audience. For the majority of our participants, performing in front of the camera was an entirely new experience which they took on bravely - coming face to face with the challenges that come with film. We, of course, didn’t have the multi-million dollar sets of Hollywood, and instead mustered an initiative like no other when a character’s living room came to life out of nothing but a few blankets, a stolen piece of wall art, a borrowed sofa and the socks off our director’s feet!
Our young people and creatives were put to the test with strict timings, multiple takes and the annoyance of planes overhead meaning the entire scene would need to be reshot - but everybody tackled their task head on. The scenes were always entirely improvised, there were no scripts - a tricky skill even for the most experienced of professional actors! We even managed to score a couple of scenes on location, heading down to St John’s Train Station with a couple of our young people to shoot the heartbreaking scene wherein character Ellie decides to abandon her dream; we were all holding our breath from the bridge above the tracks as we filmed Ellie watching as the train departed and walking away from the station.
So, what’s next? Now, we’re putting all of the hard work of last week into the hands of our brilliant film-maker Che, and sound wizard, Nat, to bring the vision of Raising the Roof to life. Watch this space to hear details of our film premiere to come!
“It’s changed my outlook. It’s made me a much more confident person. It’s all skills in my bag I can take forward and be successful.”
Raising The Roof has been generously funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and The Postcode Society Trust. As part of Leap’s Under Our Roof programme it has also been funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Kurt and Magda Stern Foundation, Treebeard Trust, Rayne Foundation and the Blagrave Trust.