MAKE PLAYS
Artistic Director’s Letter In my role at Peer Productions, I am frequently astonished and humbled by the incredible talent and resilience demonstrated by the young people with whom we work, and never more so than in this second Covid interrupted year. Most of the actors who trained with us this year took a leap of faith and relocated to join a theatre company with whom they had only met on Zoom. Their opportunities to get to know us and each other and to develop their craft were dramatically impacted by the ever-changing guidelines and restrictions and yet, despite all of this, they came together as an extraordinary ensemble to make some truly inspiring work of which I could not be more proud. One of my personal highlights was developing one of our most successful touring plays Hidden into a fully digital experience working with experts from Serpent Films, Outside Broadcast, Camberley Theatre and Overture+ to use 6 iPhones to capture a dynamic and absorbing production that can be streamed to schools internationally. Making Hidden digital, against the odds during the second lockdown, also served to fuel our ambition as a charity to reach further and think bigger.
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To this end it was during this turbulent year that we began working towards securing our own designated premises and we were able to sign a tenancy to occupy a large empty building in Woking Town centre at the end of this year. Finding Peer Place, and coming back to Woking, where I started the charity 15 years ago, feels like a new step in the Peer journey which will allow us to train more young people, reach more audiences and crucially transform more young lives. I am so grateful to my colleagues, trustees and young actors for coming with me on this exciting journey.
NINA LEMON FRSA Artistic Director
