MA Shakespeare and Creativity student Liberty writes about their experience exploring Shakespeare in community settings at local Warm Hub sessions in Stratford-upon-Avon.
My first encounter with the Royal Shakespeare Company was in September of 2023, as a star-struck tourist checking boxes off my bucket list. I was exploring Stratford-upon-Avon, awe-struck by the magnitude of history housed within its borders.
I never considered that in 13 short months I would have the opportunity to work with the RSC to develop the community outreach program, Warm Hub, alongside several peers.
Engaging local communities in Shakespeare
Warm Hub was designed as an inclusive and warm refuge for community members to reduce the cost of heating their homes and find friendly company. Every Tuesday during the winter months the RSC hosts Warm Hub sessions in the Welcome Space, their community room, offering books, companionship, and activities to attendees.
This season, the University of Birmingham Shakespeare and Creativity MA cohort were offered the opportunity to collaborate with the RSC and Warm Hub Community. We created a self-sustaining system to devise activities derived from community interests, rooted in Shakespeare.
I chose the Shakespeare and Creativity Masters because it offers opportunities like this.
The study of Shakespeare often focuses exclusively on the historical figures of Stratford-Upon-Avon, but this brief asked us to respond directly to the town’s current populace.
We were challenged to learn and interact with the humanity around us and leverage our understanding of Shakespeare to serve them. I speak for the group when I say the magnitude of our task was inspiring, and terrifying.
Creativity, collaboration and connection
Due to the nature of the climate, the cohort only had six weeks and four sessions to interact with the Warm Hub. Collaborating with them was a complete joy. Each session offered a new diverse group of people to learn from and make memories with. We realized that those memories, in their unique splendour, deserved to be memorialized.
With this in mind, we made the “Warm Hub Scrapbook”, an archive that the community could add to after each session. Our hope was that the Scrapbook would connect new, and existing attendees, with the established Warm Hub community. Using the scrapbook as its framework, the cohort designed a process of creating activities inspired by community discussions which would produce materials to be included in the scrapbook.
Using this system, we planned and facilitated four sessions of Warm Hub, offering activities we had devised with the community, for the community. In these sessions, we wrote poetry, created handkerchiefs, and designed masks, all of which allowed attendees to explore themes found in Shakespeare’s works.
It was inspiring to see how activities we devised from the communities interests allowed attendees to find common ground and connect with one another.
My time with this project showed me how Shakespeare can continue to be a vehicle for connection and evolved my understanding of Stratford-Upon-Avon, from merely being a place, to being a community.