Plays for the People at Shakespeare North Playhouse

The usual boundaries between performer and audience are being deliberately dismantled at Shakespeare North Playhouse this June. Plays for the People is a full one-day event where the audience becomes the cast, taking part in live, script-in-hand readings of three short plays that tackle urgent political and social issues.

Led by theatre-maker Andy Smith and applied arts specialist Lynsey O’Sullivan, this performance event invites participants to collectively read and respond to A Citizens’ Assembly, How Can We Be More Anti-Racist?, and The Actions. These aren’t traditional performances – there are no actors or directors. Instead, scripts are shared around the room, with participants reading aloud and engaging with the ideas as they unfold.

Each play is short, accessible, and written to spark discussion on public responsibility, inequality, the climate crisis and more. But the aim isn’t simply to reflect on these questions in the moment. Everyone who attends leaves with the tools and encouragement to stage these readings elsewhere: in schools, libraries, community centres, or wherever a conversation might be needed.

This format isn’t new, but it is powerful. By stripping theatre back to words, voices and a shared space, Plays for the People offers a model of performance rooted in dialogue rather than spectacle – theatre as a framework for thinking together.

The event takes place in Shakespeare North Playhouse’s Cockpit Theatre – a circular, timber-built space that lends itself naturally to participation and exchange. It’s open to a broad range of attendees, from artists and educators to organisers, students and anyone curious about how theatre might do more than entertain. Tickets are available on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis (from £15 to £45), and lunch is included.

We think Plays for the People offers something refreshingly progressive: collective reading, open discussion, and the reminder that theatre can be as much a civic tool as an art form.