Community
Watford Palace Theatre is a registered charity with a strong commitment to the local community, and as such we love to celebrate the culture, creativity, and history of Watford’s rich and diverse communities by showcasing them on our stage and theatre spaces.
We proudly work alongside a variety of partner organisations across the arts, voluntary, health and wellbeing, and youth sector, to deliver creative projects and programmes with our local community. Watford Palace Theatre is incredibly grateful for the generous funding received from the Garfield Weston Foundation to develop our youth and community programme, in association with the following organisations: Cathartic Arts, Watford African Caribbean Association, and One YMCA.
We’re keen to continue developing connections with our local community. There are many opportunities throughout the year for organisations, individuals, and groups to get involved with us, so if you’d like to learn more, volunteer, or have an idea for an event, please get in touch!
The People’s Palace Company is our group for adults aged 19 or over who are interested in exploring their creativity and meeting new people. Gathering weekly on Monday evenings from 9th May 2022, The People’s Palace Company is led by an experienced team of creatives, but you don’t have to be an experienced actor or theatrical expert to join – all we ask for is an open mind, a playful energy and a willingness to try something new.
If you’d like to get involved, please email us below, using the subject ‘People’s Palace Company’.
We are proud to work with the local community to create and produce shows on our stage and in our various theatre spaces as performers, promoters, designers, or technicians.
Take a look at some of our previous community productions below!
The 'Oss and the Ox (2014)
Directed by choreographer Kate Flatt and music director Adriano Adewale, The ‘Oss and The Ox was a lively, processional street performance project bringing together the Ox (the Bumba meu Boi) from Brazil and the ‘Oss (the Hobby Horse) from England. Participants from Field Junior School and Westfield Academy took part in creative dance and music workshops, culminating in a final outdoor performance with professional dancers and musicians, as part of the Imagine Watford festival in 2014.
Take a look at The ‘Oss and the Ox project here.
The Ballroom of Joys and Sorrows (2012)
A co-production by Kate Flatt Projects, Watford Palace Theatre with Greenwich Dance and the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
The Ballroom of Joys and Sorrows was an original dance theatre work with live music created by choreographer Kate Flatt and composer Adriano Adewale and performed in 2012. The work drew on traditional English and Brazilian dance and music sources, which introduced the continuing resonance of dance as ritual and social interaction. A large cast of community dancers and performers were joined onstage by five professional performers called the Players, and four musicians.
Take a look at The Ballroom of Joys and Sorrows project here.
Hello, Mister Capello (2010)
A community musical play by Nick Stimson, starring the people of Watford, created by the Palace Theatre and Watford FC.
Starring the people of Watford, directed by James Williams, Associate Director, the show premiered on Friday 3rd September 2010.
Milestones (2008)
A large-scale community play that was two years in the making. Involving over 100 participants taking part in dance, writing, drama, and music workshops to help create a play about their lives an experience.
The play, produced in 2008 to help celebrate Watford Palace Theatre’s centenary involved a cast of over 70 celebrating their stories and their community.
Watch this space for details of our next community production!
Our spacious town centre building is a haven for local community groups to meet, share, network and present their work. We’re delighted to be the home of several wonderful organisations.
Chinese Elders' Lunch Club and Language Class
Run by the Watford Chinese Association, this lively bunch meet on Tuesdays in our Green Room Bar.
Knit and Chat
Knit one, purl two and natter – if you fancy meeting like-minded individuals for cosy creations and chat, come along to our Green Room Bar on the third Wednesday of each month!
Reading Matters
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” ― Oscar Wilde
If you’re an avid reader who enjoys lively discussion and opinion sharing on literature, then the Reading Matters group could be for you! All are welcome to join in our Hospitality Room every other Thursday between 10am – 12noon.
Satsang Singing Group
The wonderful Satsang Singing Ladies are an Elders Hindu devotional singing group that meet every Thursday in our Hospitality Room.
To find out more about any of the groups listed above, or if you’d like a home for your club or society at Watford Palace Theatre, please contact our Take Part team on 01923 235455, or via the button below.
Ever fancied gaining insight into what goes on behind the scenes of a working theatre? We offer tailor-made tours of our beautiful Edwardian auditorium and building, giving you the opportunity to learn more about the various roles and departments within the theatre that converge to create the wonderful shows you may have seen on our stage!
Hopes & Dreams
“You have done the work on it my darling, and sewn in all your hopes and dreams” – Little Women, adapted by Anne Marie Casey
This Autumn we’ll be bringing a new adaptation of Little Women to our stage and we have a new and exciting art project for you! We’re calling on our arty and crafty community to get involved to help design and create quilts. Quilts often symbolise home, warmth, and family, and we’re delighted to share that we’ve partnered with national charity Quilts for Care Leavers UK who donate quilts to young people leaving care.
We need 24 patchwork panels to make one quilt. Can you help?
Patchwork panels can be as simple or as complex as you like. They should be made from pre-washed 100% cotton fabric with no licensed images (no Mickey Mouse, etc!) Make sure that the pieces of your patchwork have a 1cm (1/4”) seam allowance to prevent fraying and that your finished panel has an extra 2 1/2cm (1”) around the edge so that they can be sewn together.
Finished panels should be 28cm (11”) square PLUS the 2 1/2cm (1”) seam allowance all the way around. Making the total panel size 33cm x 33cm (13” x 13”).
Completed patchwork blocks need to be delivered to Watford Palace Theatre by 12pm on Monday 1st August 2022 so that they can be sewn, with hopes and dreams, into quilts for Hertfordshire care leavers. Please post or drop your completed patchwork panel back to us (our address is in the footer!).
Watford Big Bunting
In Spring 2021, we launched Good Will Bunting, a community arts project which asked the crafty so and sos of Watford to decorate a flag that reflected on their experiences over the past year. These flags were turned into beautiful bunting and decorated our Imagine Watford sites. So successful was this project, we devised, developed, and delivered The Fabric of Watford which sought even MORE flags, this time focusing on green spaces.
For both of these projects, we received over 550 flags which were used to decorate Imagine Watford, Stage in the Park, and our theatre building, but they are now safe and sound in our brand-new digital space, Watford Big Bunting. Here you can see every single flag that was made and find out more about our bunting endeavours.
Click to view the digital bunting!
Design Your Own Roundel
Design Your Own Roundel was a community arts project connected to our 2021/2022 pantomime, Dick Whittington and His Cat. As travel, journeys and the London underground played a key theme both in the story itself and the design of the show, the roundel (symbol of TfL underground and overground) was the perfect way to bring these elements together. We asked our community to design their own roundel and we were delighted with the fantastic creations we received. We would especially like to thank the following organisations for their contribution to this project:
– Age UK Herts
– Watford Mencap
– Cathartic Arts
– West Herts College
Special thanks also to TfL for granting us permission to use the roundel symbol.
Amanartis @ The Palace
Amanartis, the locally sourced, independent art studio, is branching out and moving into the Palace Theatre!
Amanartis is proud to be moving to the hub of Watford, into a building that stands for the same values that Amanartis pioneers itself, individuality, creative expression, and skill. The Palace Theatre is the perfect venue to showcase Watford’s greatest creations crafted by local artists themselves.
This month, Amanartis is proud to present their exhbition, ‘A Common Ground’, with works by Saba Mir, Gail Brooks-Davis and Jo Burrows. Read on for more information about the exhibition.
What brings us together? Is it a shared passion or an event, or is it something as simple as walking the same path every day, where that familiar face becomes a reassuring one, and that welcoming one becomes a friendly one.
‘A Common Ground’ is an exhibition exploring the relationship between three friends who found their place in each others lives through their individual expressions of art. Beautiful captivating textiles, landscapes that take you into another world and light captured to highlight everyday scenes in holographic splendour.
After months of planning, a commitment to the to the end goal and the support that they have for each other, their first group show will open on Thursday 14th July.
