Theatre company looking for writers on mental health
By Liz Lockhart
Laced Banana Productions is looking for material for a forthcoming community theatre project. They are currently accepting submissions for a new regular night. Within the theme of mental health you have the 
chance to have your own writing performed on November 3rd at the Lass O’ Gowrie, 36 Charles Street, Manchester.
Whether you have a finished short script, a scene from a longer play you wish to develop, or just the bare bones of an idea – they want to see them. Alternatively you can go along and watch.
This is a great opportunity for writers to see a new idea or piece of writing up on its feet or for new writers to get an idea of the process. We know from our post bag just how creative our readers are so here is an opportunity to get involved.
Laced Banana tells us that as part of a series of theatre nights which they have planned ‘Sectioned’ combines exciting, exuberant new theatre with the complex issues and challenges faced by the mental health community. In conjunction with this, ‘Sectioned’ promises to question perceptions at the same time as promoting awareness. Part 2 of ‘Sectioned’ will commence in the new year.
Laced Banana which is based Manchester told Mental Healthy how this all started:-
As for how the idea was born, we have felt that there are a lot of communities out there who are either under represented or misrepresented in arts or theatre today. We are interested in shining a light on some of those issues and think the best way to do that is to engage the very communities affected to give them a chance to relate their experiences, tell their stories and have their voices heard.
We wanted to focus on mental health because it is an issue that affects so many but is still one of the most stigmatised health problems today owing to lack of education, misinformation and just plain not being talked about. We'd like to get people talking.
One of the Laced Banana team has severe mental illness so we are already familiar with some of the issues faced by those affected by mental health and some of the organisations who work to support service users. We thought this would be a good starting point.
To date we have completed out first production of the play Blowing Whistles as part of Gay Pride. I don't know if you have heard of the play but it engages the LGBT community and questions the identity of gay men in 2011. From this we decided working with the mental health community would be next, which will kick start our May Contain Nuts* series.
We are currently working in line with individuals affected by mental health and many of them are drawing from their own personal experience to create a script/monologue to perform.
More information including guidelines and topics can be found on our website http://www.lacedbanana.co.uk/
