Thanks to funding raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Shropshire community theatre company, Moonstruck Astronaut is extending its’ reach into Telford town centre in 2025.
The theatre company has been awarded £7,500 through Postcode Local Trust, thanks to funding raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery to help empower more children and young people from Telford and Wrekin.
In the 4 minute Newsflash below, Hannah celebrates the great news and details how the funding is being used:
Moonstruck Astronaut currently runs ‘Drama in the Forest’ week-long outdoors cross-arts projects for 6- to 12-year-olds in the Easter and Summer school holiday at Wrekin Forest School and a Youth Theatre in Newport, Shropshire. Now, plans are afoot to bring Moonstruck Astronaut’s highly successful drama skills workshops out of the woods and into the centre of Telford.
Hannah de Quincey, Artistic Director, reported: “Our goal for 2025 is to continue to deliver our successful ‘Drama in the Forest’ project at Wrekin Forest School and to pilot a youth theatre project in the summer term at Meeting Point House. The project, called ‘Telford Tall Tales’, is to offer children and volunteers the opportunity to experience the joys and skills of creative story-making using drama, music, crafts and dance.”
Laura Chow, head of charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “Thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Moonstruck Astronaut can bring the joy of creativity and storytelling to even more children and young people, inspiring confidence, imagination, and new opportunities for the future.”
Parents whose children attended the Youth Theatre in 2024 rate it highly: “Fun, creative, imaginative, free spirited and enriching” and “fantastic, well organised and with lovely warm welcoming staff who allow the children to be themselves.”
Rosy Hayward, Arts Administrator said: “This unrestricted grant is incredibly good news for us. We are very thankful to players of People’s Postcode Lottery. It means we can access training, improve systems, source funding and grow our local network of support this winter to re-emerge stronger with better foundations to deliver even more fantastic projects in 2025.”
To kick off 2025 with a bang, Moonstruck Astronaut will be hosting a 7th Birthday Party at Meeting Point House at 6.30pm on Thursday 13th February 2025 to mark Valentine’s Day.
Members old and new are welcome – the event will involve drama and movement games, discussion, music and buffet food! To get on the guest list, email Rosy at admin@moonstruckastronaut.com.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
Moonstruck Astronaut Community Theatre Company
Moonstruck Astronaut is a not-for-profit community theatre company based in Shropshire that is in orbit around children co-creating arts projects that uplift and unite!
Our vision is to help foster a joyful, loving world in which everyone’s creativity is valued and celebrated. We seek to strengthen our local community’s wellbeing by enabling more people to take part in communal creativity in order to increase the bonds of friendship and fun between us all and serve world peace.
Our mission is to bring our local communities together through theatre projects, first with our children and then extending to all ages. In order to achieve this, we co-create drama projects and performances that encounter life from a child’s open-minded perspective of wonder and delight.
Hannah de Quincey is an experienced secondary school drama teacher and theatre director. She set up Moonstruck Astronaut as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company in December 2017.
For more information on the work of the theatre company go to www.moonstruckastronaut.com , watch our films on You Tube (search ‘Moonstruck Astronaut community theatre company’) and follow our Facebook (www.facebook.com/moonstruckastronaut/) and Instagram (@moonstruckastronaut).
People’s Postcode Lottery
Players of People’s Postcode Lottery have raised more than £1.4 billion for thousands of charities and local good causes. https://www.postcodelottery.co.uk/good-causes
