I began my placement as Assistant Creative Producer at Theatre Peckham back in January 2020. Alongside general programming, one of my main projects was the Crongton Knights Youth Festival, a two-day event intended to give young people the chance to respond to the play and its themes through their own unique performances.  Several school groups and some of Theatre Peckham’s own academy classes were paired with an artist to help them explore the play and devise their responses.

The festival was due to take place on the 27^th April and the 4^th May. Unfortunately, coronavirus had other plans for us and as a result of government guidelines, Theatre Peckham made the difficult decision to close its doors to the public, putting a spanner in the works for the festival. On top of this, my university canceled all face-to-face teaching for the rest of the year and told all of the students to leave London and go back to their parental homes, which made me very worried about the future of my placement.

Luckily, I’ve been able to work remotely, and we managed to work out a way to move the festival online and offer digital workshops with facilitators to the groups, which was great news for all those involved. I’m currently living back at home with my parents in very rural Somerset and being able to work on the festival and for Theatre Peckham has played a huge part in maintaining my sanity.

I’m still doing my placement two days a week and keeping in contact with the team on a regular basis. It’s been really great to be involved, as it gives me something to work towards and adds structure to my otherwise fairly empty week. With my degree and placement now happening remotely, staying connected is more important than ever. Although there is still some uncertainty around some of the other projects I was working on, I am confident that we will work together to make them happen, either online or in the not so distant future.

Maya Wilson.

#LondonTogether  #Lockdownlife