Julia Herritty & Jeanne Desurmont

Hi Julia! Can we start with a brief presentation about yourself?

So, my name is Julia, I’m 24. I am a 2021 graduate of the MA Applied Theatre course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, specialising in the criminal justice system.

Can you tell us more about your work?

The majority of my work at the moment is working in the prison system and with people at risk of offending in various prisons across the country. And I also do some youth work in the summers with young children doing outdoor education through storytelling.

That’s super interesting. How do you engage people in the prison system in drama? What is the first contact?

So we don’t start with drama directly… I start the process with a lot of games so it’s quite playful initially. From my perspective as a facilitator, it is very important to be really flexible, be really conscious of meeting people where they're coming from. Just respecting them as people, treating them with respect and providing space where they can relax a little and be creative.

What are you typically doing in your workshops?

It’s essential to be super flexible in the room and with the outcome of workshops that you create. I like to mostly do creative work with a group so that what they make is very much theirs. And then scaffold my workshops, so you start with something very small, maybe they're all really shy, so you only play games where they barely have to look at each other to begin with, and then you build it up to when they can confidently interact and finally create something.

Let’s talk more about drama in general, starting with a very broad question: what do you think drama brings to the world?

I think when I work with people my main hope is that they have a pocket of joy. I think it's also a really, really powerful tool for learning soft skills like growth in confidence, teamwork, communication, time management, and public speaking. I also think that it's a really cool tool for empathy building, and thinking about other people's perspectives, both through acting and watching things. Often when you watch things, you subconsciously recognize another perspective.

Thank you for that great answer, I definitely resonate with that. Do you have a particular creative process when you are preparing your workshops?

I like to know as much about the group ahead of time as I can, in terms of the size of the group, the age, their confidence level, as much information as I can get is best, but you often only get a little bit. And then I plan quite a basic workshop, playing a lot of games, maybe starting a little bit of improv or a bit of free writing, and see what the groups seem to enjoy. Which elements they like best, which they thrive in, and which they need a little bit of work on. And then I work from there!

If you had all the means necessary, what would you do as a drama facilitator?

In a perfect world, I’d like to do a year-long project with various different groups and prisons and just have a lot of freedom with them in a space dedicated to drama. I'd really like to be bringing people joy in the day to day in that space. And I would like lots of fun workshops in care homes, in hospitals with children… I honestly just really love people! I would work with anybody! And if I had all the money and I didn't have to worry, all day every day I would give my time to do drama with every age group.

Very nice! So, final question. What’s your guilty pleasure?

The Lizzie McGuire movie. I just think it’s great.