A series of workshops that ran alongside
the National tour of Flower Girls

Running alongside Flower Girls was an extensive outreach campaign that focused on the legacy that The Crippleage, the home in which the original Flower Girls resided, has left Twentieth Century attitudes towards disability.

The project worked with people of all ages in Ipswich, Plymouth and London to create a curtain-raiser; a short performance before the main show that explored the legacy that we would like to leave the next generation of disabled people.

Writing the Future also encompassed a series of workshops with Hampstead Theatre Heat and Light Company, Reach Inclusive Arts and the Imperial War Museum.

Beyond that, even more workshops were held! The company ran 22 sessions with 13 other schools, colleges, care homes and drama schools. 

What would you like to change in the future?

We asked our audience members and workshop participants and got a great range of answers.

*    I’d like to see a disabled actor for the next Dr Who.

*    More acceptance, assistance and availability in shops and on transport. 

*    Opportunities!  Free expression of oneself with wishes and desires.  With facilities available to make all possible without a feeling of being different and a non-judgemental attitude.

*    Need lots of jokes and humour.  We can laugh (and be laughed at or with) our own flaws of character or appearance but feel uncomfortable laughing at others’ disabilities.

*    Often other people think disabled people are less intelligent and treat them in a very patronising way.  Disabilities such as those associated with hearing and sight are hidden disabilities.

*    Changing attitudes is a long process.  By showing positive role models to everyone they will slowly come round to seeing the person before the disability.  Educating others to see similarities and not differences is a start.  Valuing effort put in and not necessarily the outcomes.  Keep smiling.

*    More people die of medication than anything (except cancer or heart attacks) in America.  We need complimentary medicine on the NHS! 

*    In the future there will be one world, the same world.  And we will live in it – together, as equals.

*    To see humanity, not disability.

Graeae thanks Grooms-Shaftesbury Charity and Heritage Lottery Foundation for funding this project.