Participation and Learning at Wilton’s Music Hall

Wilton’s Music Hall undertakes a Participation and Learning Programme of work that encompasses heritage and the arts whilst also developing knowledge and skills for the future such as citizenship, communication, motivation and team building.

Our work in this area is richly varied: from our local free cinema screenings, primary and secondary schools exploring local history and performance, local community groups using it for events and meetings and even the local Primary Care Trust have used it as a blood donor centre.

Last year we reached over 7,000 people through this programme of work.

Arts

A particularly special education project in autumn 2011 partnered our production of Britannicus with Mulberry School for Girls – which is predominantly made up of Bengali students. The young people worked with the award-winning writer Timberlake Wertenbaker and director Irina Brown on devising their own short plays in response to Britannicus which were then performed on Wilton’s stage. This was an amazing opportunity for these young people to work with these highly regarded theatre professionals and it noticeably improved their confidence by performing on stage; communication skills as they discussed the plays themes; and team building as they worked towards the final performance. In addition to this education project almost 500 students saw Britannicus.

Earlier this year, Magic Me, the UK's leading provider of intergenerational arts activities, and award winning purveyors of 'progressive working class entertainment' Duckie collaborated with Wilton’s to bring Weekend at Wilton’s. This weekend featured over 30 pensions and 30 young people from London’s East End performing alongside professional performers in a weekend of singing, dancing, photography and puppetry.

Heritage

For the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street in September Wilton’s threw open the doors to the community and beyond to mark its involvement, and played host to films, concerts, readings and exhibitions. Over 5,000 people visited Wilton’s over the anniversary weekend showing just how important Wilton’s is in terms of being a focal point of local history and heritage.

Even More

As part of our Phased Capital Project we will open up the 40% of the building that is currently not accessible to the public and create four additional studio spaces that can be used for Participation and Learning work. The creation of these spaces will mean that more Participation and Learning activities will take place and we will be able to reach an even greater number of people through this work.


We are also looking into new ways of interracting with a younger public and are hoping that the newly lauching app will entice a new generation to find out more about Wilton's rich history.

For more information, please click here.