#compass collective

Happy Birthday, Benedict 🎉 Here’s to another fifty years.

As part of Refugee Week 2019 (17-23 June) Voices in the Dark: From Around the Globe will showcase the work of young people - users of the British Red Cross Young Refugee Service, who have taken part in workshops led by theatre company, Compass Collective.

Here we take a look at day one of rehearsals. You can catch the results of this collaboration on 22 June in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. 

Compass Collective are gathered in the Globe’s brand new rehearsal space to begin devising a play, and they don’t know yet who might turn up to be in it. So there’s a little nervousness about numbers. The four day rehearsal is planned during half term in order to have the best turn out, but it’s Ramadan. Having run evening workshops across five London boroughs at the British Red Cross Refugees and Befriending sessions for the past two months, they know the amount of energy involved to take part and fear it may put off some of those who are fasting.

Nevertheless 11 o’clock comes by and participants start filtering in. Some have met before through previous befriending sessions there is a sense of familiarity in the room, making the name games easier when they begin.

Half an hour later, Matilda, a producer from the Globe arrives to give the group a tour of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Even without the candles which light it for performances, the theatre is magical. Each of the boys has their opportunity to speak on the stage, taking it in turns to say their name and their favourite thing (‘music’, ‘football’, ‘education’, ‘this whole building’) before swapping and experiencing the space as an audience member. To illustrate the acoustics of the space Leila from the Red Cross leads a song. There are laughs as the group tries to fit Solomon’s name into a structure that only seems to have space for two-syllables.

Back in the rehearsal room there is a buzz as the young actors mark out the stage on the floor with tape, while others play on the keyboard and cajón brought along by Tom, Compass Collective’s musical director. As lunch time calls, half the group peel off to the Prayer Room, while others juggle plates of pasta (donated by a local Carluccio’s) while dribbling footballs across the space.

In the afternoon, the group has been offered a ‘Heaven and Hell’ tour, which explores from the Globe Attic down to the underbelly of the Stage. These aren’t available to the public, so it’s a really special moment. Entering through Stage Door, Patrick from Compass Collective points at one of the archive photographs of raucous Jacobean comedy The Knight of the Burning Pestle and starts attributing each of the actors in the picture to one of the boys.There’s lots of laughter and it’s beginning to feel like a company.  

On stage, the sense of excitement builds: one of the boys begins climbing a ladder to the Musician’s Gallery, and others mill around on the stage taking selfies and commenting on the flags that are hung around the auditorium for the performance of Henry IV Part One that will take place later that day.

The stage meanwhile is set up for The Merry Wives of Windsor. Downstairs in ‘Hell’ the stage above only leaves around 5 feet of headroom in which the boys,  full of teenage growth, awkwardly try to avoid bumping their heads.

Backstage, a thunder sheet becomes a source of great interest, before props take precedence – the live plants and flowers that populate the The Merry Wives of Windsor set  are particularly pleasing – and someone becomes transfixed by the tannoy which calls actors to stage. ‘Is this for the sound?’ he asks. ‘Yes’, Patrick says, whisking him away before curious hands can interfere with the cues for tonight’s performance…

As the day draws to a close, the boys are shown to the nearest tube stations and Compass Collective sit down to debrief and plan the activities for the following day, the rehearsal space already looking significantly more lived in. Only a few days to go…