My Bright Places
We’d love you to join us - to explore, share and be as creative as you’d like to be! We’ve got a mixture of in-person and online sessions to join, with an open offer to be as involved as you’d like. And all sessions are free to take part. More details below - keep on scrolling!
We would like to meet people with lived experience of MS or a similar chronic illness. Friends, partners, family also welcome!
This is a sister project to Bright Places by Rae Mainwaring - a theatre production touring Oct-Dec 2024. It’s the story of Rae’s early 20s after being diagnosed with MS (not be to confused with M&S or S&M!). The play celebrates Rae’s “bright places” - the places, people, thoughts and moments that brighten up days when things are getting a bit grey. But we thought, what are everyone else’s bright places? This is where you come in…
Overview
Creative Days: x5 in-person sessions & x1 online session to choose from, pick one you can make, up to 3 hours long but you can dip in and out, interactive and creative, tea and biscuits. Dates and booking links below!
Online Check-Ins: x5 online chats pre-Christmas & x5 online chats post-Christmas, these are 90mins relaxed and discussion based, online with live captioning (& transcription), you can dip in and out and you don’t have to attend all of them in the 5 week blocks. Dates and booking links below!
Steering Group: x4 90mins meeting to help us plan the big sharing event! The group will meet on Wednesdays at 7-8.30pm on the 23 Oct, 6 Nov, 20 Nov and 4 Dec. Email Courtenay if you’d like to join our Steering Group.
Finale Sharing Event: Post-Show performance with the Bright Places’ company, performing and presenting some of your pieces - poems, writing, stories in whatever form they be! Stay after the Bright Places matinee at Soho Theatre on Saturday 7 December 2024 - you’ll need to have a ticket to the show on that performance but we will organise a discount code for tickets.
Watch the show Bright Places online!
We will also be making Bright Places (the show) available to watch online at home. Stay tuned for this one and sign up here:
Rae Mainwaring. Photo credit: Graeme Braidwood
We are proud to be working with charity partner, Shift.ms: the digital community for people with MS.
The project is supported with funding from National Lottery through Arts Council England and National Lottery Community Fund.
Creative Days
We are thrilled to be hosting six Creative Days - where you can join us to be creative together. Led by Jo Gleave - theatre director and facilitator - and with Rae Mainwaring or Tom Wells - both writers, both living with MS - we will be playing around with stories: remembering stories, making stories, telling stories etc. There will also be an extra person to support us all in the room.
There will be an open and welcoming vibe but there’s no need to share more than you want to. We’d love you to come to chat, maybe write a bit and play around with visualising and expressing some of the fun day-to-day things that cheer us up.
Most are in-person sessions with tea and biscuits but we also have an online session (and hope you have tea and biscuits at home!).
Traverse Theatre, EDINBURGH
Sunday 3 November, 12.30pm - 3.30pm
Attenborough Arts Centre, LEICESTER
Sunday 10 November, 12.30pm - 3.30pm
Birmingham Rep, BIRMINGHAM
Saturday 16 November, 12.30pm - 3.30pm
ONLINE (via Zoom)
Sunday 17 November, 12.30pm - 3.30pm
Rich Mix, LONDON
Saturday 23 November,12.30pm - 3.30pm
Dorchester Arts Corn Exchange, DORCHESTER
Wednesday 27 November, 12.30pm - 3.30pm
Online Check-Ins
We have ten online check-in sessions but we’ve broken it down into two five-week blocks for ease of booking in!
These are relaxed, online sessions hosted by Jo Gleave as an opportunity to keep in touch with the project, whether you've attended one of our Creative Days and would like to explore and develop on work that you created there or you're completely new to the project and want to join a friendly group which will be a mix of discussion, creative exercises and updates on the project and sharing.
You can dip in and out as needed and don’t have to attend all the check-ins in each 5-week block!
All sessions will be live captioned (with a live and post-event transcript).
Schedule
Pre-Christmas block:
Tuesday 12 November: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 19 November: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 26 November: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 3 December: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 10 December: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Post-Christmas block:
Tuesday 7 January: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 14 January: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 21 January: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 28 January: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Tuesday 4 February: 7.00pm - 8.30pm
