2021: touching distance
a digital community playwriting project, led by Bisola Alabi and Will Hudson
Over a 10-week process, Society Unlimited was awarded Arts Council funding to team up with Urban Partnership Group and award-winning playwright Bisola Alabi to run a digital playwriting project with elders group based in Shepherd’s Bush, West London. Whilst many of us have grown accustomed to creating work digitally, this prospect was still relatively unknown to the group, let alone the potential of reaching out to other communities and audiences online as a way to tackle social isolation. The process culminated with a work-in-progress reading of a play, driven by the group and attended by family members from as far away as Boulder Colorado, Tel Aviv or Swindon!
2021: eyes up
directed by Will Hudson for immediate theatre, written by nell hardy
Eyes Up was written in collaboration with young people in Hackney, in response to Immediate Theatre’s patron Idris Elba’s #WalkAMileInMyShoes campaign, reflecting on young people’s hopes, dreams and journeys. It explores the the lives of young people living in a London Tower Block; the challenges and the beauty; the creativity and adversity entailed with inspiring and dreaming. Every community has its block, every block has hundreds of stories, and every story has its mystery. Do our dreams lie in some future aspiration, or are they right here, embedded in concrete?
2019-2020: our place, our time
led by Will Hudson for the bush theatre, in collaboration with masbro community centre shepherd’s bush
Between August 2019 and March 2020 Society Unlimited was commissioned by the Bush Theatre to deliver a devised theatre project for an elders group from the Masbro Community Centre in Shepherd’s Bush, West London.
Part dance-theatre, part musical, part festival,Our Place, Our Time invites the audience to celebrate the wild complexity that the word HOME brings in 2020. Heart-warming but uncomfortable; personal but political; moving but hilarious, the piece embraces these inherent contradictions, placing the MASBRO group squarely as leaders, co-creators and activists of their community.
2019: DEEPER THAN DRUGS
LED BY Will Hudson, IN COLLABORATION WITH TURNING POINT U.K
In 2019, Society Unlimited was awarded funding from the Innovation Fund - a foundation set up by Turning Point to support initiatives around recovery from drug and alcohol misuse.
Over the period of 10 weeks, Will worked with 6 participants to create powerful original monologues that documented the daily struggles of recovery, and reflected on what a life free of addiction could look like.
2018: widening the lens on mental health
LED BY WILL HUDSON, IN COLLABORATION WITH PADDINGTON DEVELOPMENT Trust: london
Society Unlimited partnered with PDT and the Community Champions on a groundbreaking project aimed at improving mental health in local communities.
The Community Champions scheme draws in hundreds of volunteers to help build a strong network of local residents in the London borough of Westminster. Offering support from childcare to recycling; from sports activities to arts clubs, the champions are the pulse of their local community.
With their support, we created weekly workshops and quarterly community performances around the incredibly complex issue of mental health - something that is affecting thousands of people in local communities on a daily basis..
2018: SHAKESPEARE "SIN FRONTERAS"
LED BY WILL HUDSON, IN COLLABORATION WITH VIK SIVALINGAM: london
We are interested in channelling today’s Britain into Shakespeare’s verse through a multitude of voices, both foreign and British. Drawing on expertise in the areas of classical verse and physical theatre, we with a diverse group of actors. Rather than imposing a formula, we work day in day out with the actors to create acting work that reaches across cultures. We find out where the text resonates within each actor, and where performers of contrasting cultures may find common ground.
Using Shakespeare as an anchor, we navigate these complex issues of cultural identity.