Kings Rochester – Homelessness in Medway drama performance

06 Dec 2018

King’s Rochester continues to support local charity Porchlight and held a special drama performance raising awareness of homelessness this winter.

The Lower Sixth Drama and Theatre students from King’s Rochester gave an intimate performance to a VIP audience on Tuesday 4th December. Attendees included Nathan Tough, Marketing Officer at Porchlight and Mr Jeremy Walker, Principal of King’s Rochester.

Drawing inspiration from the Porchlight documentary ‘Flying the Nest’, a film which includes interviews with former rough sleepers. The pupils worked on bringing these stories and characters to life on stage in a thought provoking half hour performance.

The piece, commissioned by Porchlight was devised and written by the students who are also using it as coursework for their A Level studies. Incorporating ideas and techniques of several theatre companies and practitioners they have studied this term. Several stories interweave as the characters face redundancy, divorce and worse, all winding up sleeping rough before finding support and assistance from local homeless charities.

Head of Drama at King’s Rochester, Mr Steve Mount says “December is an appropriate time to perform the piece given that it focuses on homelessness. Money raised at the performance will help vulnerable people in the local towns, who will need extra support and help as the winter cold sets in”.

Porchlight also invited media students from the local university to film the performance for use in their promotional material in the future.