5 JULY 2009

THE LEFT MUST TAKE THE RIGHT IS LAUNCHED
There are now possibilities of the project being supported and in the spirit of optimism that generated the original company's work I'm starting the programme of Oral History interviews on spec. I'm hoping to grab an hour with as many people as I can over the summer and autumn.

Everybody I interview will be asked to sign a formal copyright waiver. This will follow the model of the Sheffield University-based Unfinished Histories archive project that documents the Alternative Theatre movement of the same period - they've even interviewed me!

The main difference will be that the archive, including your interviews, will not initially be available publicly. In the event that it does find a public home, you will be able to modify or edit any material you have given me before it is made publicly available.

FIRST INTERVIEW
My first interviewee, recorded on July 4, was JENNY TIZARD. She is now Manager of the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, Edinburgh Napier University, and was an Interplay volunteer in 1972 and 1974. She wishes to be remembered to all who remember her!

...AND THE NEVER-ENDING DISTINGUISHED ROLL-CALL OF EVERYBODY ELSE so far!

LOIS LAMBERT, volunteer and then company member 1973-78. Now lives and works in Mongolia, writing for UN agencies, directing and writing documentary films about UN projects

CHRISSIE POULTER, school student Interplay volunteer and original member of the Leeds Youth Theatre Workshop in 1970, lecturer since 1990 at Trinity College Dublin, now head of Media, Film and Culture at Leeds Trinity College

DICK DOWNING, company member 1977-79; returning associated artist up to 1985. Recently working for the National Foundation for Educational Research, now a freelance researcher in arts and education

JOAN MILNER, local parent, community activist, Interplay volunteer and organiser of the first Interplay playgroup. Recently retired Cleaning Manager for Yorkshire Television, mother of 5 children, grandmother to 4, and another on the way!

MAGGIE ANWELL, company member, 1971-3, now a "semi-retired" drama and English teacher and active Psychosynthesis Counsellor

JEANNIE FARR, volunteer and then company member 1972-4, now a Performing Arts and English lecturer at Hackney Community College, and doing an MA in Shakespeare and Theatre at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-on-Avon

MALCOM READ aka MALCOLM RAEBURN, volunteer 1972, 1973, writer of Change Partners for Interplay Community Theatre. Malcolm is the Programme Leader for the BA in Media and Performance at Salford University and teaches Acting for TV and Radio. He is now Admissions Coordinator for Performance Division

CARRY GORNEY, founder member in 1970, now working in the National Health Service as a Family Therapist, also working on various media and arts projects related to Health and her therapeutic work

TONY JONES, volunteer and then two stints as a company member between 1973 and 1985, working as deviser, writer and performer. Now a full-time Drama Teacher at Ecclesbourne comprehensive school in Duffield, Derbyshire

JANE WODDIS, volunteer and company member 1973 to 1977, now an independent cultural researcher after working with Big Brum theatre-in-education company in Birmingham for thirteen years

JO GARBER (nee Weinberger) was a Full-Time Volunteer (probably the only to be so designated!) from 1973 to 1974. She is now an Art Therapist in a Sheffield Child and Adolescent Mental Health clinic in the NHS

JON RUST, a founder member from 1970 to 1974, and later returnee as Administrator in the 1980s, Jon now helps to run the Arts and Creative Economy Development Unit of Kirklees Metropolitan Council

MAGGIE FAGAN, volunteer 1972 and 1973, is now a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist based at the Tavistock Clinic in London. She specialises in Fostering and Adoption, as well as teaching Child Psychotherapy

IAN HEYWOOD, was a graduate of Leeds University Music Department in 1970, and part of early moves to set up an Arts Centre that later coalesced into Interplay. He contributed music and songs to several early Interplay projects, and now works for Jabadao, the national charity that "works in partnership with the education, health, arts and social care sectors to bring about a sea change in the way people work with the body and movement".