Gazebo Theatre is a ‘Theatre in Education’ company based in Wolverhampton. They tour professional theatre productions, run arts programmes in schools, and provide creative training and support around employability and development.
As one of our Gen22 partners, Gazebo Theatre received funding to engage young people facing barriers in a 30-hour volunteering assignment. Each participant was assigned a creative mentor and given a £100 budget to plan and deliver a social action project, enabling them to make a positive change in their community, develop new soft skills, and inspiring them to explore new career pathways.
Gabriela was born in Romania and moved to England with her mother at the age of 10. After completing a course in Performing Arts at college, she was looking for further opportunities to develop her creative skills and overcome feelings of isolation. Gabriela joined Gazebo Theatre’s Creative Industries Training programme and was looking for support with her application to university acting courses.
At the start of her Gen22 experience, Gabriela took part in team building activities, visual arts workshops, and training sessions about how to plan a social action project. She received one-to-one mentoring and earned her Emergency First Aid at Work certificate.
For her social action project, Gabriela wanted to use her performing arts skills to support others facing similar challenges to her own, such as moving to a new place, learning English as a second language, and integrating into new social groups. She organized and delivered two afternoons of workshops, which involved preparing risk assessments, gathering resources and creating goodie bags, and independently contacting schools and community groups to engage participants. The workshops included a series of drama games followed by writing exercises, during which participants created poems on the themes of identity, change, and loss.
Through her Gen22 experience, Gabriela developed confidence in herself and her abilities to communicate and collaborate with others. Since completing her project, she has continued attending the Gazebo Hub to maintain the friendships she formed and receive support for auditions and interviews to secure a place to study a Drama and Theatre course at university.
