Sheffield Voices Pyjama Drama was set up as a drama group with a difference and is celebrating its first anniversary. Funded by the Arts Council and Arnold Clarke, Pyjama Drama has worked with over 20 people with a learning disability and Autistic people over the last year to create plays about things that do not work well in people’s lives. In May 2022 they showcased their first play, Welcome to Sunny Smiles which was a funny but sad play about group living.
The second play ‘Waiting Room Anon’ is to be shown on 18th Nov to a similar audience but this time including clinical leads, commissioners and psychiatrists from Sheffield Health and Social Care. This play is based on research done by Sheffield Voices into the problems people are facing accessing healthcare. It looks at the disproportionate discrimination in the medical field of people with a learning disability, the over medicating of people by psychiatry and the lack of accessible information.
The project has helped to put Sheffield Voices on the map nationally as a self-advocacy group that is challenging assumptions and practices in a creative way. This has been the start of Sheffield Voices developing a suite of self-advocacy projects they’ve designed to support people to have a voice about their lives, what may not be working well for them and what they want to see changed.
Sheffield Voices intend to keep their drama group running and will be looking for new members to join from November 2022.
If you want to join please contact Sheffield Voices on 0114 253 6750
Read more about Pyjama Drama, see the pics and watch ‘Welcome to Sunny Smiles’ on this Sheffield Voices blog.
