Peace talks come to Northampton Market Square for International Day of Peace

People are invited to drop in for an informal chat with Undiscovered Country about their use of theatre to support the development of peace in schools, businesses and communities or join a free workshop.

The one-hour ‘peace talks’ will take the form of free community café workshops. A community cafe is an event where people exchange ideas around a specific theme or area of interest and will take place at The Creative Place on Northampton's Market Square.

The workshop will use extracts from Roy’s new theatre-for-education play ‘The Missing Peace’ as the catalyst for the conversations. ‘The Missing Peace’ is based on the debate between Americans James Baldwin and Willam Buckley at the Cambridge Union in 1965 looking at race relations and the American Dream.

Roy Leighton, Director of Undiscovered Country, says, “Conflict and violence in schools and communities in the UK over recent years has increased and looks set to worsen unless action is taken, and soon, to address the underlying causes.

"The ‘Theatre of Peace’ programmes that I’ve prepared with my colleagues at Undiscovered Country outline a pathway for transforming cultures of conflict into ones of collaboration and cooperation. During this Community Cafe ‘Peace Circles’ event on Saturday, 21st we will explore how individuals and communities can be the change they want to see in the world.”

The workshops will explore each of the three expressions of peace: peacekeeping, peace-making and peace-building, and how they relate to inner peace, outer peace, community and global peace and ecological peace.

After the four sections of the play have been read there will be time for people to talk about any thoughts, feelings, insights and ideas that the script may have provoked.

This will be followed by a short facilitated session for those who want to speak and share to do so. People are not obliged to speak and can just listen. The same Peace Circle will run three times during the day.

Anyone interested in taking part in one of the workshops can book a free ticket here Schedule | Northampton Film Festival 2024 (eventive.org)