At Novo Theatre we believe very strongly in developing the skills of the people who work for us.  We believe the three stages of learning, doing and reflecting helps us to build exceptional work. This concept extends beyond our permanent staff team to encompass our freelancer and volunteers. 

Northumberland is a vast county populated by individuals with a plethora of backgrounds and interests.  We often focus our work on communities of interest, identity or place. For example, we first met Khalil Abdulrahman in the summer of 2019 when we worked with a group of Northumberland refugees developing ideas for our Fairytales project. Khalil was an 18-year-old Kurdish-Syrian, originally brought up in Aleppo, who with his family first fled Kurdistan and then Turkey before arriving in Northumberland.  

During one of the participatory sessions we held to build Fairytales, Khalil riffed on his tanbur, with one of our professional performers.  We knew we had to invite Khalil to join our professional ensemble to perform in our work-in-progress performances.  Whilst Khalil clearly enjoyed the experience, music was a hobby for him.  His professional ambitions were to secure a degree and work in the construction industry as a designer.  Over the years he has volunteered for us on a variety of roles.  He was the model for our imagery for Repeat Signal, he trained as a walk guide for Walk in Your Shoes and he has helped with administration around project planning (a skill we thought would be useful in his professional ambitions).  Whilst the later task had a practical application for his future career, his volunteering with November Club, especially in the early days, helped to develop his English language skills and his confidence is his ability to achieve what he wanted.