SBC Theatre launches Secret Summer, an immersive adventure for all the family

Secret Summer, an immersive audio experience, will be premiered at Sheffield’s Endcliffe Park on Saturday and Sunday and has been co-created with refugee and asylum-seeking children who are members of SBC’s Youth Theatre of Sanctuary, the first of its kind in the UK.

SBC set up the Youth Theatre in January after getting positive feedback from a pilot they ran last November. “It was incredibly popular, there were way more people than we had planned for,” says Rosie McPherson, SBC’s artistic director. “Essentially it is for children up to the age of 16 and their families – the age range at the moment is 3 to 15 years. We offer free weekly creative sessions for people to come and make friends, extend their networks and practice their English in a relaxed atmosphere. We are also partnering with different arts organisations on various projects.”

The young actors have already got one production under their belt – in April they took part in Sheffield Theatres’ Together in the City Festival, performing on the Crucible stage. An impressive venue for a debut performance. “Many of them had never performed before and they can’t wait to do it again,” says MacPherson. Since then they have been working together on the immersive storytelling walk Secret Summer, with the young people co-creating the narrative with Leeds-based Syrian writer Anan Tello. “She explored lots of different story ideas with the kids, then wrote them into mini-chapters which the kids then recorded,” says MacPherson. Using geotagging technology, families will be guided around the park by binaural narration on a free app, encountering real-life surprises along the way, to uncover the secrets of the park and meet some of its fictional inhabitants including Squirrel, Butterflies, Unicorn and The Beetles.

After the launch weekend, Secret Summer, which is available in English and Arabic, will be free for families to download and enjoy whenever they take a trip to Endcliffe Park. SBC’s approach to the development of Secret Summer, as with everything they do, is play-based says MacPherson.

“We might play musical chairs for example and if you are ‘out’ you have to invent a character. We generate a lot of content with them from what feels like good fun. We encourage them to improvise, just try out things, and we explain that this is the process that professional theatre makers use to come up with ideas. Then we look at how we can link together all their suggestions and give them ownership of it.”

MacPherson hopes that eventually they will be able to take the Youth Theatre into other areas of Yorkshire as it has proved so beneficial for the children. “We bring in different artists to work with them on a range of theatre projects. We hope the confidence it gives them will spread out into other areas of their lives.”

Secret Summer is launched at Endcliffe Park, Sheffield, July 2 & 3. Details sbctheatre.co.uk

SBC's work with people seeking sanctuary

Established in 2010 by co-founders Rosie MacPherson and John Tomlinson, SBC Theatre became the UK’s first Theatre Company of Sanctuary in 2016.

Resident company at Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill and Associate Artists at Cast, Doncaster, SBC has, over the last three years alone, created and delivered 33 programmes of support for more than 4,000 participants, alongside critically acclaimed touring and digital productions. Their stated aim is to make work with, about and for those seeking sanctuary in the UK and internationally.

Their work is unapologetically political and is created with the purpose of effecting social change. Their production Tanja, which told the story of one woman’s courage in the midst of prejudice and abuse, was presented at Parliament to hundreds of MPs and toured the country twice. A piece of theatre that was also a call to arms and a campaign, it starred Emily Ntshangase, a former Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre detainee. Other recent projects include Can You Hear Me, Now?, a celebratory, large-scale outdoor performance combining live music, dance, spoken word and storytelling, a flagship production for Coventry City of Culture 2021. Have Your Passport Ready was a virtual game experience, created with brothers Khaled and Mohammad Aljawad, originally from Syria and now based in Sheffield. It placed the audience directly in the world of the UK’s hostile environment, as they became players collecting evidence to prove their right to remain in the UK.