"Brave isn't how you feel, it's what you do"
Written by Danielle Burn
Produced by Mortal Fools
Written by Danielle Burn
Produced by Mortal Fools
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About 'MELVA' - the play:
'MELVA' tells the story of a 10-year-old girl whose struggles with anxiety, or 'worrits' as she knows them, keep her from leaving the house. Her Grandpa has grown so worried about her that he fakes his own disappearance in the hope that it will compel Melva to leave the house and overcome her ‘bad worrits’. What follows is a funny and poignant adventure for them both, where each learn how their ‘worrits’ affect them and new ways to tackle them separately and together. Vertical Divider
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About 'MELVA' - the project:
Thanks to strategic level funding from Arts Council England, this production has now been developed into a touring theatre package for schools, in partnership with our friends at Children North East:
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"I learned that being afraid of something doesn't mean you can't do it"
“It was very funny and made me understand more about anxiety”
- pupils, melva tour autumn 2019
MELVA 2019-20: THE HIGHLIGHTS...
We performed MELVA 28 times
We delivered 89 post-show workshops
We delivered 12 hours of Teacher CPD focusing on wellbeing and resilience
We visited 21 schools across the North-East of England
A further 12 schools came to see us at Gosforth Civic Theatre
And, most importantly...
We worked with 2,800 children to help them better understand, recognise, and control their worrits!
We delivered 89 post-show workshops
We delivered 12 hours of Teacher CPD focusing on wellbeing and resilience
We visited 21 schools across the North-East of England
A further 12 schools came to see us at Gosforth Civic Theatre
And, most importantly...
We worked with 2,800 children to help them better understand, recognise, and control their worrits!
"Melva is simply the best drama intervention I have ever seen [...] the rewards are instant and long-lasting"
HEADTEACHER, PARTICIPATING SCHOOL
What it's like to have MELVA in your school:
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Listen to Headteacher, Jacqueline Mowat, talk about her experience of having the MELVA project in her school, Hareside Primary School:
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Information Packs for Schools (Feb 2020):
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How schools can access MELVA:
We have come to the end of this iteration of MELVA for now, but we are working hard to raise funds to help us get it back on the road and back out into schools as soon as we can.
We are also exploring new avenues for digital resources, to be able to extend our reach beyond the North-East of England. If you would like to register your interest in participating in a future MELVA project, please complete the form below to be added to the waiting list.
We are also exploring new avenues for digital resources, to be able to extend our reach beyond the North-East of England. If you would like to register your interest in participating in a future MELVA project, please complete the form below to be added to the waiting list.
More about 'MELVA' the play and where it all started in"Front Street Theatre"...
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What if… I’m doing a test and trying my best,
but the words are meaningless data, they jump about on the paper, some backwards, some not, and I’m losing the plot, and I’m gonna look silly, like that boy with a willy picture, stuck on his top when he went to the shop after school... Do you have worrits? You know - that uncontrollable churning in the pit of your tummy like you have 341 worms squirming about? Melva Mapletree has them too, and right now they won’t let her leave the house. But then, one night, something happens which changes her world forever. Melva is for children aged 7-11, their teachers and families. It's a boisterous, mischievous and funny story of one girl’s adventure to find out what she’s really capable of. |
After a hugely successful run of sold-out public performances over Christmas 2017 in our temporary theatre space, Front Street Theatre, and incredible feedback from our audiences, we decided to develop the play as part of a touring package for schools and theatres.
The production is a creative tool to support children (and the adults who support them) to understand more about worries and anxieties and learn tools for self-care. This supports the mandate set out in the 2017 Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision. We are working with Children North East and Public Health Northumberland.
The production is a creative tool to support children (and the adults who support them) to understand more about worries and anxieties and learn tools for self-care. This supports the mandate set out in the 2017 Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision. We are working with Children North East and Public Health Northumberland.
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About Front Street Theatre...
Since we don't have our own Mortal Fools theatre venue (yet...) we had to get creative in order to bring Melva to public audiences. As a company based in Prudhoe - a town in West Northumberland with very limited theatre provision - we were really keen to keep the production as central and accessible to the town as possible.
So, with A LOT of elbow grease and sheer determination, we converted an empty shop unit on the high street into 'Front Street Theatre' - our very own pop-up theatre space.
So, with A LOT of elbow grease and sheer determination, we converted an empty shop unit on the high street into 'Front Street Theatre' - our very own pop-up theatre space.
