Jon Oram

Background

About Jon Oram

Summary Jon Oram (born 2nd July 1947) is an international theatre director, playwright, performance teacher and the leading exponent in the field of Community Plays. After attending thirteen different schools he left to join the circus before attending Froebel Institute to train as a primary school teacher. Although disillusioned with the education system he found great value in educational drama and its use a teaching tool across the curriculum. In 1975 he became a drama advisor in Norfolk. He trained in physical theatre, mime and improvisation with a range of leading theatre teachers including Marcel Marceau, Jacques LeCoq, and Keith Johnstone. His first encounter with community plays was seeing. Howard Barker's Poor Man's Friend written in Bridport, Dorset. This led to him working with Colway Theatre Trust as Ann Jellicoe's co director for the Sherborne Community Play. During the early 1980's he was theatre Animateur for Cornwall where he wrote, directed and performed for Knee High Theatre. In 1985 he became Artistic Director of Colway Theatre Trust. During the 1990's he introduced the concept of community plays to North America, re-branded Colway as Claque Theatre and re-located to Kent. He has directed or written thirty five community plays throughout the length and breadth of Britain, In Europe, Canada and The United States. In 2008 he was presented the Otto Castillo Award in New York for his contribution to political theatre. Jon has developed the work extensively over that past twenty five years and is priestly writing a book ‘The art of the Community Play’ which reveals how he has developed his methods of developing a play script through soundings, research, drama searches, devising and composition workshops and rehearsals developing what he calls the social actor who implicate the audience in the world of the play.