Our Community
As a theatre for the people, our community is at the heart of what we do.
We are committed to sharing joy through our work. We aim to present a diverse programme reflecting the community we live in and giving every voice a platform to be heard.
We create life-enhancing experiences for people in our community through our creative learning and engagement programmes.
Children & Young People
Encouraging the next generation to find their voice and develop creative skills essential to their future wellbeing, our programmes for children and young people include:
Our creative learning programme for young children includes a series of fun weekly music and drama classes for babies and young children as well as a variety of fun workshops and camps throughout the year.
Drama at the Well is a fun and engaging drama course which encourages young children to act and participate in many different activities specially designed to explore creativity and build confidence.
Singskool is a unique programme designed by early childhood music specialists who put the FUN back into the FUNdamentals of music! Interactive classes will have your little one singing, playing instruments, conducting, dancing and exploring early music literacy.
Young People, Schools & Colleges
We collaborate with a wide range of organisations to bring creative opportunities to young people.
We collaborate with schools to provide creative workshops with visiting practitioners.
Our poetry competition for local schools encourages young writers and fosters a love of the poetry of WB Yeats through our ‘Childrens Poet of the Year' competition.
We work with artists and networks such as The Network of Extraordinary Audiences to bring artistic experiences to children with special needs.
We invite local schools to attend work in progress readings to engage the young community in our work and to give them a voice in the development of new work.
We work with Sligo Autism Services and the HSE to provide creative workshops for teenagers with autism.
We offer young people in our community a chance to get involved in the development of our programmes including:
A junior book club that inspires the joy of reading developed for & with a focus group of young readers.
Where young people become decision makers at the theatre. The Takeover 2019 saw secondary school students from Sligo, produce, devise and present their original play The Ballad of Burke and Hare at the theatre.
We work with various communities and organisations to offer access to the arts for young people. We collaborate with Music Generation Sligo to subsidise half price tickets for u18s for all professional music shows through our Go See scheme.
Creative Learning for Adults
We provide a variety of opportunities for adults to explore their creative side through our weekly workshops which take place throughout the year. From acting, singing, writing, music composition and playing an instrument there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
Take part in our workshops
Hawk’s Well Theatre's Cultural Companions was set up in 2019 to create a network of like-minded people interested in arts and culture, who would accompany each other to cultural events. This is a great way to meet new people with shared interests. The aim of the initiative was to provide increased opportunities for older people to engage with Sligo’s vibrant cultural and arts scene.
During the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 this project evolved to bring artists and older people together to create new work.
You can watch a streamed show all about this project here.
We are delighted to have our original Cultural Companions initiative back up and running and are enjoying welcoming our companions old and new to enjoy culture together at the theatre.
We aim to bring all ages together to explore the arts through the workshops and programmes we present throughout the year. Our partnership with Cairde Sligo Arts Festival and Undercurrent saw us produce a series of intercultural dance-share workshops in 2021 where people of all ages and backgrounds explored the universal language that we can all speak – Dance.
Our participatory programmes bring people together in a non-competitive environment with a focus on participation, inclusiveness and, most of all enjoyment.
This annual choral participation programme has been running since 2015. Each year we bring people together to celebrate the joy of singing, culminating in a magnificent performance at the theatre at the end of the year. In 2020 and 2021 while we couldn’t hold this event at the theatre, we engaged with our community online to create an online choir and even staged a pop-up performance on Sligo’s main street.
Sligo Acts is a fun acting programme suitable for all levels of experience which has been running since 2018. This programme is suitable for both those with plenty of performances under their belts and those just starting to tread the boards.
Together with Sligo Academy of Music, we formed the Sligo Community Adult Orchestra in 2018. Led by conductor Niamh Crowley, this fun initiative gives both people who play regularly and those who haven't played an instrument in a while, a chance to play as part of a large collective, sharing the joy of music making together.
