Output details

Little Platoons

This play engages with and dramatises debates in contemporary educational policy and is a further example of Waters’ methodology for making theatrical interventions into contemporary reality through shaped fictional scenarios. The research process had a number of phases. First Waters tracked protagonists in the world of Academies and Free Schools through attending a conference on 'The Schools Revolution' in March 2010. He met with and interviewed patrons and heads of academies in Westminster, met the head of ARK, a non-profit organisation driving many of the changes, with initiators of free schools in West London (including Toby Young) where the play is set and Rachel Wolf, head of the New School Network who were commissioned by Dept of Education to roll out the new schools; and with educationalists such as Professor Diane Reay and members of think-tanks such as Civitas. He also met with parents, students and teachers in a focus group session within the borough drawing on their experiences of educational choice and local schools. Waters was interviewed about the play and these issues by Time Out, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Evening Standard during the course of the show's run; he also participated in a public talk-back on theatre and education and helped the Bush Theatre venue source personnel for a discussion event on the issues raised in the play; key protagonists in the research process came in to rehearsal to talk with the actors. This process exemplifies Waters’ use of theatre as political intervention and dialogue.