Churchill Workshop

 Harare, April 11th 2016 | Thandiwe Nyamasvisva

On the 14th of March 2016, at Churchill Boys High school, Almasi presented readings of scenes from plays written by 7 high school students. The presentations focused on dreams, love, innovation and peace. These presentations were a culmination of a playwriting workshop held from the 7th to the 11th of March 2016 at Churchill Boys High School. The workshop was led by Thandiwe Nyamasvisva and 13 students from Churchill boys high school took part. The facilitator had the students, as part of the workshop process, looking at what they are good at, what matters to them and, using these as fuel to their creative process. As a result of this workshop, a few teachers from the school have expressed interest in hosting further playwriting workshops. The workshop is part of the Capacity Building of Dramatic Artists Project supported by The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust in partnership with Sida and Danida.

 A Note from the facilitator: Thandiwe Nyamasvisva
I am a firm believer in the value and importance of transferring skills. When I got the opportunity to do a playwrights training at Churchill Boys High School, I jumped onto it. At first, I was a little concerned that I had to compress things I had learnt over many years into a single week of training. It wasn't a week, but it ended up being two days because I wanted them to start implementing the things they learnt by the third day. I think it is a testimony to both my teaching ability and their capacity to learn that they managed to grasp the basics of the elements of dramatic writing within the first two days. However, I must say that the boys worked hard and by the time we got to Friday some of them had written up to three scenes of a play using the techniques I had taught them. I have no doubt that given a little more time, these young men would have come up with masterpieces.