enact and react
the enact project
The Enact project explores cultures of sexual violence in secondary schools and communities. We work to centre young people’s voices in the wider conversations that impact their lives.
about enact
As a company that has always championed young people's voices, we wanted to provide a platform for them to bring their invaluable insight to this conversation. Enact is an offering to our young people to be heard, and the result are these performances and accompanying play text.
This work was directly informed by a ten session creative exploration programme, taken to groups of young people from four secondary schools, looking at healthy relationships. Working closely with a member of our creative team, each school has spent time examining the culture around relationships in their school and direct communities, and talking about the issues that their students have found most relevant to them. Our playwriting team have visited, listened, discussed, and taken the feedback of these groups to create Enact. All of the plays reflect the opinions and experiences that these brilliant young people have generously and courageously shared with us.
Our aim is for these plays to be used by schools, theatre groups, and community settings and we offer them for free for these purposes.
Read them, perform them, or take them as a starting point to inspire vital conversation.
You can find links to the performances of Enact Volumes one and two below featuring professional actors.
An accompanying copy of the play text can be downloaded here.
enact for schools
The Enact project was created in direct response to young people’s thoughts and opinions on gender-based violence.
Our Enact programme works in secondary school’s to address issues around gender-based violence and relationships. We offer programmes of creative workshops to support young people’s understanding and literacy around the subject. We then support
young people to create their own interventions and artistic creations to have a wider impact on their peers and teachers.
This work is adaptable to the needs of your school, but has previously included;
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Creating and staging original pieces of theatre
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developing peer-intervention workshops
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Visual arts creations and exhibitions
We are about to start the exciting work of developing the React programme, a community-based adaptation of the Enact project, to bring our work to more young people in more settings. We want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be heard.
Enact resource pack
We have designed a resource pack to help young people to explore the topic of healthy relationships and sexual violence through creative activities. This pack can be used by professionals working with young people to explore the themes of sexual violence, based on the play scripts from ENACT: Volume One and ENACT: Volume Two. Some activities in this pack address the themes on a general basis, and others relate more closely to the stories and characters of the plays. We hope that these activities support young people to explore the topic of healthy relationships and sexual violence and discuss how the themes the plays identified present themselves in their own lives, communities and wider society. Click the button below to view our resource pack.
"These plays offer an unparalelled insight into what our young people are experiencing on a daily basis and act as a wake-up call for the rest of us. We need not just to listen, but to act."
Chloe Purcell - CEO, SAFE!
*Content warning*
Please note, These plays present adult themes and reference to sexual violence, self-harm, suicide, pornography, rape, abuse, bullying, paedophilia, sexual perversion, physical assault, harassment, coercive control and the impact of rumours.
With strong language. recommended for viewers aged 14+.
Enact performances
