About The Host:
I am a arts practitioner, agitator and creative producer who makes work designed to engage the public in issues that are important for social change. Inspired by creative arts and service design thinking, he works collaboratively with communities, artists, organisations and institutions to design projects, programmes and arts experiences in the public realm. “ A member of the Thursday Club Solution Room he has recently been commissioned by Lambeth Community Foundation to works with Older Men around issues of Black Mental Health - He has built a body of work which falls under the title ‘Community Dialogue and Transformations’ and seeks to explore how community interventions can both provide insight and incite action. Since 1993 he has won contracts developing drama-based responses to health and wellbeing, mental health, social care, education, substance misuse, housing and regeneration, youth services and community development, and special educational settings across the UK. Over the last 20 years Tony has built a strong reputation for innovative and experimental drama and theatre-based projects within the criminal justice system in the UK and across Europe. These projects are often workshops, plays, films, exhibitions, installations and radio broadcasts. Tony has spent many hours devising special challenges and new games and exercises, all with the intent of helping people stop coming back to prison. His work is often focused on behavioural change, developing pro-social skills, increasing self-esteem and greater self-awareness with people at risk. This includes theatre and digital video projects in prisons as well as production of cross artform projects that span the divide between prison and the wider public. I often work alongside other practitioners using performative methodologies in community ‘hotspots’ with BAME groups on issues of conflict and reconciliation,. I try to bring together members of hostile communities and finding ways for them to recognise their shared humanity and start to communicate. In addition to teaching he often guest lectures at Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmiths, Bristol, Leicester and Birmingham Universities. Tony has created the UK’s only weekly forum theatre on the air Afro-Caribbean radio soap opera drama www.492kornaklub.com He is currently I am working pan London delivering training to young people in the use of role play and interactive theatre techniques for creative 'round table' workshops with officers and staff from Metropolitan police. Tony Cealy www.tonycealy.com 07956 877358