A new project will aim to being communities together by encouraging them to share their stories of living in Salford.

The We Are! Project at Salford Arts Theatre launches in March and is open to people aged 16 to 90.

Roni Ellis, the theatre’s artistic director wants people to get involved: “People will come in, converse with each other, bounce ideas off each other and hopefully by the end of it we will have created a lovely theatrical piece.

“If people do want to get involved, talking about their experiences of living in Salford and want to get up on stage and have a go that is available for them to try out.”

Stories from local residents will then be turned into play by a professional writer, for them to perform to friends and family.

Roni said: “Hopefully we’ll try to fit all those ideas together create a theatrical piece> Whether that means one story or seven stories – or a number of stories that link or don’t link – then that’s how the latter end of the workshops will be.”

“If people don’t necessarily want to do that but maybe they want to get involved in the ideas side of things or deciding on costumes then they can do.”

Roni said the project marks an ongoing engagement between the community and theatre.

“This year we’ve been building up relationships and developing ideas of the way we can engage with the community more.

“We’re really excited to be doing this kind of project. Our first kind of bigger project. We did a smaller project with Age UK last year; we wanted to work with younger and older people to overcome the stigmas that each group have.”

The We Are! Project has a similar objective. The project’s concept is for all generations to engage with each other and realise they have more in common than they think.

Roni also encouraged the creative writing aspect of the project. People are also able to get involved in the writing phase.

Roni said: “We don’t want to turn people away who have and want to express ideas.”

The project commences on the March 10 and will run for approximately 16 weeks.

Roni said: “We’re hoping after this project that we’ll have more creative projects going on within the space.”

She added: “It would be really great to have a network of people who are interested and engaging in what’s going on in the theatre.”

Numbers for the project are limited, with only 20 spaces in total – 10 younger and 10 older.

If you have a story about Salford, or simply want to get involved in the project, you can contact the theatre on 0161 925 0111, email at info@salfordartstheatre.com.

The theatre is open from 11am until 5pm on weekdays and open on Saturdays 10am-4pm.

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