Museum and cultural projects
New Earth Theatre has over 15 years of experience working in partnerships with museums and other cultural organisations to develop unique projects to augment their exhibitions, archives and programming. From creating short plays and interactive character guides for museum exhibitions to developing workshops to take to schools around specific topics, we can produce an activity to suit an organisation’s needs.
Clients have included The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, the V&A Museum, The Museum of Childhood, The Theatre Museum, Colchester Museum, The Museum of East Asian Art, The Royal National Maritime Museum, The Cutty Sark, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Council.
“Fantastic! The actors really brought the children’s experience to life-especially powerful was the fact that they themselves were part of the action”
Teacher, Lauriston School
“There’s no doubt about the theatre company, absolutely, really fabulous”
Teacher, Wisborough Green School
Cutty Sark
James Robson
In 2011 New Earth Theatre was approached by the National Maritime Museum to create the first BESEA character to appear in a museum as part of their Character Encounters programme. We then researched and developed a character based on the real life James Robson, a British Chinese sailor who was found as a baby floating on a raft in the South China Seas. Adopted by a British captain and his wife, Robson was brought up in Poplar, East London. James Robson can still be seen at the Cutty Sark and National Maritime Museum.
China Now
British Council
As part of China Now’s national primary and secondary school cultural programme to increase engagement with China, New Earth ran over 40 workshops in schools all over the country. Workshops varied from storytelling and drama to shadow puppets and preparing for performance. Additionally, we have run scores of workshops and masterclasses exploring East Asian theatre in schools, colleges and community centres nationwide. International workshops and masterclasses have run in Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
Silk Road
Educational Performance
A youth performance project inspired by the company’s main house production of Running the Silk Road. Secondary school students from Longdean School in Hemel Hempstead, Kidbrooke, and Charles Edward Brooke School in London worked with a professional Chinese dancer, musician and Beijing Opera storyteller to explore these ancient stories and artforms and came together to perform at Watford Palace Theatre and the Pit, Barbican Centre.
The British Museum
World of the First Emperor
We worked with the British Museum to develop a 6 month long schools programme for their Terracotta Army exhibition. The project included interactive gallery encounters along with an accompanying 30 minute play. Over 4,200 children and their teachers visited and took part.
Colchester Museum
Guardians to the King
As part of Colchester Museum’s ‘Guardians to the King’ exhibition, we provided Warriors from the Han Dynasty for interactive gallery encounters, ran family workshops onsite and facilitated drama based educational workshops for local students to increase the cultural understanding of the objects on display.
Royal Geographical Society
Crossing Continents: Connecting Communities
Yellow Earth Theatre led a series of workshops with young people from Camden Chinese Community Centre and Brunswick Neighbourhood Centre – exploring and interpreting through drama the Society’s archives and assisting in the interpretation of the materials for their exhibition Crossing Continents.
Half Moon Theatre
The Last Days of Limehouse
In partnership with Half Moon Theatre in London we organised in depth workshops in schools exploring the schools local heritage prior to a special schools performance of our theatre production of The Last Days of Limehouse at the Old Town Hall Limehouse.
Contact us to find out more about the range of ideas and workshops we can offer.