The Limelight Project, funded by Porchlight, presents an evening to celebrate 50 years of North Kent Mind through the empowerment, voice, stories and talents of some of our service users.

Join The Limelight Project for an evening that promotes better understanding of mental health and wellbeing with guest speakers, a short play and audience participation.

The partnership between The Orchard Theatre and Mind North Kent began three years ago with the launch of a 12 week drop-in drama course each season.

Led by The Orchard Theatre's Creative Learning Producer and MIND support worker, sessions provide a place to make friends, develop confidence and self-esteem and most importantly - laugh. There has been a lot of laughter on Tuesday afternoons over the last few years..!

So in January The Orchard Theatre were asked to be involved in the 50th year celebrations and invite the drama group to become a theatre company and make a play, we were delighted! So our challenge was to explore the stories of the group members and the thoughts, feelings and fears of what it is like to live with mental health suffering.

The company have been very brave themselves, supportive of each other and collectively creative in sharing, shaping and performing memories, moments, fears and wishes.

It was a very big ask of the members to share their stories, to talk, to listen, to remember, and then to allow their fellow group members to dissect and reconstruct through drama and improvisation.

The group members have motivated each other by taking part in discussions, writing exercises and a drama devising process to create the content for our play.

Sessions have included many emotions but ultimately the unanimous feeling that these stories need a platform, the pain acknowledged and the awareness raised that mental health is real, and very real for someone we all know and care about.

The process of making the play has been an emotional journey, the result of which is real stories shared by real people; each character you meet is inspired by a real moment or memory and each performer is a Mind service user.

We are very proud of their individual and collective achievement, their courage, commitment and belief in each other is testament to not only what drama can do but the great work that the Mind charity achieves and ultimately how important it is to take time to listen to each other and make time to talk.

The show will be at The Orchard Theatre on Tuesday 13 June from 7.30pm. Pre-show dining is also available before the show.

The Orchard Theatre’s Restaurant provides a delicious range of, unique and memorable dishes, using the freshest local produce and prepared daily by the Head Chef. Reserve your table when booking your show tickets.

To book tickets or for more information visit orchardtheatre.co.uk or call the Ticket Office on 01322 220000.