Theatre Centre will release a digital adaptation of new play Birds and Bees by Charlie Josephine (Pops, Edinburgh Fringe 2019) to UK state secondary schools, providing a high-quality blended learning resource for free. Having worked closely with teachers, education leaders and pupils, they hope this small gesture can make a difference, supporting schools to deliver the Drama and RSE curriculums.
Keen to make this powerfully relevant production available to a wider audience, Theatre Centre will also make the film accessible to the public. It will be made available to stream for a limited time via Soho Theatre On Demand, from Monday 8th to Sunday 28th March.
Directed by Theatre Centre’s Artistic Director Rob Watt, Birds and Bees fuses Josephine’s fiery contemporary spoken word with the vibrant stylings of acclaimed sound designer Xana. The production interrogates the complexities of teenage relationships in the digital age, igniting discussions about modern relationships, gender identity and sex education for young audiences.
Birds and Bees has been developed with secondary school students in Years 10 and 11 and their teachers. Providing an important piece of contemporary work that can help to deliver the current Drama and RSE curriculum, teachers are already recognising the output as an invaluable learning tool that addresses relationship challenges in an authentic and relatable way.
Watt comments, Last year we embarked on making a show in extraordinary circumstances. Working in collaboration with exceptional freelance artists, teachers, and young people, we made Birds and Bees and are now super excited to make the show available for free to all state schools across the UK. We are also thrilled to be working in association with Soho Theatre to share the production with the public for a limited time.
We always strive to be as useful as possible to schools and audiences, especially in this ever-complicated time, and continue to make work that is relevant, captivating and of a high quality.
Theatre Centre are a non-profit organisation. As an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation, they continue to champion theatre in schools at this vital and difficult time, as well as developing and commissioning exciting artists to make engaging new work with and for young audiences in the UK and beyond.
Birds and Bees is available to schools 22nd February – 23rd July 2021, with public viewing Monday 8th – Sunday 28th March 2021. More information can be found here.
