Made By Mortals

Made By Mortals are a theatre company based in Tameside, Greater Manchester. We create original music theatre, films and podcasts with a diverse range of community participants in collaboration with world class artists and health and social care organisations. In addition to bespoke projects, we run 2 core groups that meet every week:Hearts & Minds is a group of older people that make original musical theatre for children. The gang meet up every week to create music, lyrics and scripts or rehearse and perform their latest shows. The group regularly collaborate with world class professional artists, theatre makers and musicians in the creation and performance of their shows. The resulting productions tour schools, community settings and conferences throughout Greater Manchester and now, through the power of the internet, nationally and even internationally. It’s much more than creating musical theatre though, it provides a platform for children to connect with older people and help them feel a bit happier and healthier by putting their skills and experience to good use. In turn the group offers older people the opportunity to give children high quality cultural experiences. Many of the group have long term health conditions including dementia and mental health illnesses and through our work we help improve their health and wellbeing through connection, creativity and fun! The Johnny Barlow Theatre Company are another of our core groups, made up of adults that have experience of mental health illness and/or learning disability. They create work that raises awareness, reduces stigma and provides solutions to health and social challenges of our times.The Johnny Barlow Theatre Company has been going for nearly 30 years. It was started by the late Johnny Barlow back in the early 90s, when ‘Friends’ was launched in the US, Tamagotchis became the pet everyone wanted and ‘The Macarena’ became a movement!Safe to say, Johnny Barlow was well ahead of his time, using drama and music in a therapeutic way to help people recover from mental health illness. The ethos of group has remained the same in all that time. However, the group have now added social change into the mix. The group use music and drama to improve their wellbeing, but they are also creating edgy, often hard hitting, always uplifting, original music theatre that brings people together to make a difference. The work created by The Johnny Barlow Theatre Company gives people with lived experience an opportunity to shape the future of public services. It also gives socially engaged organisations the opportunity to invest in communities wellbeing while gaining much needed insights from ‘real’ people.