Make Me

Molly Naylor is an award-winning writer and performer. Her stories and plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and she has performed at festivals and events across the world.

Molly has recently been working with High Tide and Norfolk & Norwich Festival to develop a new theatre piece, Make Me. Set in a struggling school in Ipswich, the play tells the story of Emily, a drama teacher with a saviour-complex, and the students she’s determined to save.

During this initial research and development phase, Molly facilitated creative writing workshops with a selection of Year 10 students from Hewett Academy in Norwich. These workshop sessions explored writing techniques such as structure and form, and supported the pupils to develop their own creative  ideas and inspirations. Participants were then able to present their resulting script pitches to a cohort of Year 7 students.

This unique and exciting artist-led project offered young people a valuable insight into the sector and the creative process of writing a script, as well as the chance to work with a professional writer and performer. Molly was then able to take insights from the students to further develop the script for her own work.

Make Me received a work-in-progress performance at Hewett Academy’s Walter Roy Theatre as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2024.

‘It’s interesting to see how to develop those ideas and take them further. That’s definitely something that I have learnt, like the dilemmas, challenges and how the character will change throughout rather than just staying the same…. it’s interesting to see the more professional side of it, how things are really done.
I’m enjoying it.’
Participant, Hewett Academy

Artist

Molly Naylor

Location

Norwich, Norfolk

Participants

10 x GCSE pupils from The Hewett Academy

Partners

High Tide
National Youth Theatre