Step By Step with May & June
An entertaining two-woman show exploring obesity, healthy eating, and our society's attitudes to food
Availability:
Step By Step with May & June is currently available for short tours and occasional one-off events. They can also be commissioned for bespoke projects if you have an issue you want “sorted out”! Please contact info@womenandtheatre.co.uk for more information.
Introduction
“We’re May & June… and we’ll be helping out down your way soon!”
The indomitable sisters May & June (played by Janice Connolly & Terina Talbot) are local experts: where there’s a hole they’ll fill it, if there’s a stone they’ll turn it. Their latest mission is to get to the bottom of healthy eating and the all important question: why we don’t always do it when know we should!
May & June have researched with a range of women, to find real local solutions to the growing problem of obesity in our communities. They share their findings in an interactive and friendly performance: a happy hour of talking, dancing, singing, and thinking, to raise awareness and understanding around the causes & health risks of obesity. The performance also features some surprises as May & June operate a multimedia accompaniment…from their “meals on wheels“ trolley!
The performance addresses a range of issues around diet and health, including
- core good practice health messages such as ‘five a day fruit & veg portions’
- exercise
- breast feeding, pregnancy, weaning
- diabetes
- elders/ family pressure/ peer pressure
- smoking cessation, as well as sign posting to local services
- food labelling and what it means: What is a trans-fat? Or a saturated fat?
Step By Step explores the part food plays in all our lives, from cradle to grave. Through the play, we “meet” other characters, including a breastfeeding mother who speaks about the benefits of this method of feeding her baby. The ‘baby’ grows up, firstly into an infant taking her lunchbox to school, and later into a teenager who hides her lunchbox and only cares about “fitting in”.
History
Step by Step with May & June was commissioned by Walsall Council’s Creative Development Team and Walsall tPCT in 2007. The original brief was to raise community awareness around nutrition and healthier lifestyle choices.
Janice Connolly and Terina Talbot researched ‘in-role’ as May & June with women and men in and around Walsall from a range of communities, collecting their personal stories and viewpoints around the causes of obesity, the challenge of healthy eating, cultural attitudes to food, and wider healthy lifestyles including exercise and leisure pursuits. The material gathered was then used to devise Step By Step with May & June.
Step By Step with May & June was then toured in partnership with Walsall Council’s Creative Development Team and Walsall tPCT in 2007 and 2008, to community centres, schools, libraries and health centres. A poster campaign and DVD were also produced reiterating the key messages of the production.
People warm to May & June as the characters are accessible, friendly and open. During the interactive performance, people are very willing to consider and share experiences about food, eating practices, exercise, and tips for living happy & healthy lives, as well as identifying problems & barriers to achieving this.
Notes
May & June can go any where and get to the bottom of any subject … the potential is enormous! When we created these two sisters it was important that they were the kind of people who could communicate, who had respect for people, who liked to laugh, who could get a real good discussion flowing, who were ordinary women, who could in some way be ‘universal’ – who could offer something to everyone. A tall order? Maybe, but May & June, entrepreneurial dinner ladies, do seem to be able to achieve these things. How do they do it? It’s their humanity – simple!
Terina Talbot, Associate Director
Outcome
Audience comments from Walsall 2007
May & June are true professionals – we want them back!
I’ll now value myself more … and am going to dance more! It made me smile.
I feel after this show we can set up a focus groups and educate ladies on a regular basis on healthy eating.
I liked the way local and national statistics were brought in to the performances. Audience participation was great. Advice given was clear and not complicated.
Thought it was v informative and easy going – it has given me will power to lose a bit of weight.
Very good show, it has made me think that I may end up getting diabetes like my Mum if I don’t do something about my diet.
I really enjoyed the discussion. The humour helped break down the information and made it interesting – thanks!
Production Credits
Written & Devised by: Terina Talbot & Janice Connolly
Original Cast:
May: Janice Connolly
June: Terina Talbot
Downloads
May & June information 2 Responses to “Step By Step with May & June”
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Review of May and June – Step By Step
May and June – Step By Step was super! It was heart-warming, funny, active, educational, informative and fun to watch! It taught children how to live healthily, what diet you should have, what is good and bad in your food. May and June (the characters) also dressed up as different characters and told different stories about food and obesity. May and June also spoke in different languages so that no-one would be left out. They also spoke to the audience and ask questions about diets and they also got them to do role plays, which were really good. They got everyone involved with the show. At the end of the show, there was a song put on and everyone started singing and dancing, it was fun. The whole show was fun to watch!
On Wednesday 8th July, I attended Crowley House; a probation hostel along with Women and Theatre to watch a self devised piece of theatre called “Step by Step” with May & June. The piece of drama explored issues of obesity, healthy eating and attitudes towards food. The play involved two characters called May and June; two vibrant sisters who planned to get to the bottom of healthy eating. This scripted piece of drama was written and researched by Janice Connolly and Terina Talbot who both played the main characters incorporating humour and diversity into the piece of drama; along with Jill Norman who stage managed the performance on the day.
Throughout the performance these lively pair kept up the enthusiasm and spirited characteristics of the two characters, staying in role at all times and engaging the audience with a variety of different stories, asking the audience questions on the issues bought up and listening to their own opinions and solutions they may have towards the situation being presented to them, plus introducing the audience to many distinctive characters from research they collected across Walsall. Characters that the show consisted of all related to real life women the company spoke to about circumstances they had been in involving leading a healthy lifestyle; many drama techniques such as changing their tone of voice, various accents and a wide range of facial expressions were used to achieve this; for example a sketch involving a woman, who spoke of the benefits of breastfeeding her child. This sketch dealt with problems that mothers face during the first few months after birth where they begin to breastfeed their babies. It then continued following the life of the mothers baby leading up infancy where the child begins to take packed lunches to school; eventually growing into a teenager and reluctantly taking in there lunchbox as they believe it won’t help them to “fit in” but instead asking for money and spending it on unhealthy meals. This sketch as a whole I believed helped the audience to question what they would do in a situation similar to this and if this ever happened to them what they would do to resolve it.
The characters costumes were very distinguishing, changing into certain pieces of clothing for each character they played; the use of a small and simple set helped in presenting the play for the audience to understand the aim of the show. Plus the on going character of “Aunty Moo” the sisters auntie who we find out through the performance has been diagnosed with diabetes, leads on to teaching the audience about the dangers of obesity, what diabetes is and the different sorts of health issues you could face if you become obese or over weight. Props used in the play also played a key role in making it look as realistic as possible and staging the play for the audience to be aware of the issues being bought up. An example of this was the use of the clipboard that had facts and statistics on obesity and how you can stop yourself from becoming ill.
Overall this ingenious play with its use of multi-role playing, enthusiasm and informative piece of drama helped to make the performance a success. In my eyes I believe I have learnt a lot from this play and would recommend this to anybody and everybody as I am in no doubt sure anyone who watches this play will be inspired to start leading a healthy lifestyle!