Racist Without Realising? is this year’s Lower School Production, written by the Lower School cast and facilitated, edited and directed by Mrs Rachel Nussbaum. The production has been inspired by discussions and reflections after the global Black Lives Matter movement protests of 2020 and 2021 and how we at Epsom College could do more to recognise and continue the discourse on race, diversity, equality and inclusion.
It seemed only logical to create an original production allowing the students to research and to both find and voice their own opinions, encouraging continued listening and learning to inspire action for change.
We hope you enjoy the show below.
Questioning and reassessing
“When starting out with any piece of theatre for a community, often the stimulus and subjects can be raw and divisive in nature,” explains Mrs Nussbaum.
“Theatre is there to make an audience think and reflect and in the case of social and political theatre, cause action. We didn’t want our audience, as political theatre practitioner, Bertolt Brecht, famously put it, to ‘hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom’. We wanted our audience to invest, like myself and each cast member did, in questioning and perhaps reassessing their position and actions towards being an anti-racist.”
“As a white privileged female in the position of an educator it wasn’t lost on me, nor did I want this to be unrealised by the students that in order to develop and produce a piece of theatre exploring Black Asian and Minority Ethnic lives, experiences and voices, I needed to seek advice and guidance so thank you to Ms Jacqueline Austin and Ms Hafsa Hasan for their time and guidance on helping me navigate my facilitation”.
“The devising process online had to take on a new shape via Teams meetings but allowed for more research; sharing articles, watching documentaries and searching for images. This gave us all time and opportunity to listen and take in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic opinions and experiences through history and gave focus to what stories we wanted to share.”
Tackling Questions
“The result ended up being that of staging interwoven storylines within a generic school setting – after all, why shy away from the very reality of the situation when trying to provoke change – as well as mixing in cast reflection of their research and development journeys for the Prologue and Epilogue in the form of direct audience/camera address which was self-taped during lockdown. The different storylines are based around the cast’s choice of four main questions and a final statement:
- How did racism start?
- What does it feel like to be discriminated against?
- Why do people make racist jokes?
- Why are people racist without realising?
- All Lives Can’t Matter until Black Lives Matter.
Challenging Production
“Back in school, it proved that our plans for a live performance were, again, thwarted. We then changed tack, having to rehearse, then film, scenes each week. This caused a disjointed performance process, but all succeeded in keeping the sincerity of the message, remaining joyful throughout and had a taste of what it’s like being on a fast-paced television soap set. Hopefully, watching the result of their labours in full will be rewarding for all.”
“I’d like to pass on special thanks to Ms Rhiannon Johnson, Mr Mark Bishop and Mr Keiran Kerswell for their constant support. I am exceptionally proud of the young cast and honoured to have gone on the same journey as they’ve been through – sharing, listening, unlearning and learning together. As the cast put it, ‘We hope this has contributed to your journey. We’ll continue ours and it’s your turn to continue yours.”
Cast
- Lucinda Austin (Je)
- Annabel Curry (Wa)
- Lucas Degeorges (Hu)
- Maja Dhanani (GH)
- Daisy Gillespie (GH)
- Nadia Gyamfi (Je)
- Issy Henderson (Hu)
- Amelia Jallot (Je)
- Ananya Kailasam (Je)
- Brandon McGuinness (GH)
- Francesca Nicolosi (Wa)
- Jack Paulson (GH)
- Alex Pavry (Hu)
- Sienna Raincock (GH)
- James Roberts (Je)
- Ana Clara Rocha-Pannetier (Wa)
- Jare Salami (GH)
- Samara Sarpong (Hu)
- Dev Sharma (GH)
- Sabrina Smith (GH)
- Hattie Stephens (GH)
- Violet Tobin (Je)
Crew
- Director: Mrs Rachel Nussbaum
- Stage Manager: Mr Keiran Kerswell
- Video Production and Editing: Mr Mark Bishop
