DisOrderly Theatre

25/08/2026

Sales have been extended for today's workshop. We'll be working on our big show today as well as picking the winner for our pamphlet competition. Don't miss it. There are still FREE places available. 2-4pm at St Chads, TODAY.

You can also pay at the door.

Latecomers, welcome.

Parking on the street.

Lift available.

Click "classroom" on the door to call me to let you in.

Join our neurodiverse led theatre class designed specifically for neurodiverse adults and carers aged 18 and over, or 16+ if accompanied.

19/08/2026

Competition Time!

Be there to win it. (must attend 25th August class 2-4pm)

CALLING ALL "DREAD GAZEBO" SPOTTERS 🎪

So we're doing a weird little theatrical art project and we need someone with a strange enough brain to pull it off.

The brief: design a pamphlet themed "How to Identify a Dread Gazebo in the Wild." One of our regular workshop members invented this "villain" completely on the spot last session, and now we can't stop thinking about it.

What actually is a Dread Gazebo? Genuinely up to you. Could be a monster. Could be a feeling. Could just be a normal gazebo that someone described in a slightly too ominous voice. Pictures, text, whatever format works, we want your version of it.

Here's the important bit though: don't just make something people read. Make something that gets them off the sofa. A checklist. A dare. A photo they have to take as "proof." The pamphlet should hand someone a small, slightly ridiculous task to do out in the real world, not just a story to look at.

This isn't a "turn up with a finished piece" kind of thing. It gets made together, on the day, as part of the workshop itself. Scribbles on the back of a napkin count. Half an idea counts. A single doodle with one line of text counts. We're after the concept, not a polished final product; that part comes later.

A quick bit of theatre nerdery for you, because we can't help ourselves:

What you'd essentially be making sits close to something called invisible theatre. It comes from Augusto Boal, the Brazilian director who developed Theatre of the Oppressed. The idea is simple but a bit devious: you build a "performance" that hides inside ordinary life. Whoever encounters it has no idea they've stepped into a piece of art. There's no stage, no seated audience, nobody clapping. Just a real person, genuinely reacting, and that reaction becomes the whole point.

A few cousins of the form worth knowing too, in case any of them speak to you more:

Guerrilla theatre - unofficial, often satirical performance dropped into public space without permission, usually with a protest or activist edge.

Participatory art - the wider umbrella for anything that needs the audience to physically do something rather than just look.

Alternate reality games - where the "story" only unfolds through real actions, clues and tasks a person completes in the real world.

Your Dread Gazebo pamphlet can lean into any of these, or all three at once. Genuinely your call.

The prize:

We'll print as many as we can and hide them in random tourist info points across Gateshead and Newcastle, with credit given, plus a shoutout across all our socials.

The rules:

-Neurodivergent, 18+ (or 16+ with an adult with you)

-Book and come along to the workshop on 25th August, 2 till 4pm, where you'll submit your pamphlet as part of the session, even if it's just rough sketches and scribbles

-No generative AI anywhere in the process. This one's about your hand, your brain, your weird idea, start to finish.

A couple of dates to know:

The winner gets picked live, in the room, at the end of the workshop on 25th August.

Then on 1st September, we sit down as a theatre company and actually finish the winning piece together, turning it from an idea into the version that gets printed.

That's when the real editing happens, so if you want a say in how your work gets shaped, come along for that one too. It's optional, just there for your peace of mind.

One more thing worth knowing upfront:

This is a collaborative project. The winning pamphlet will have your name on it as the creator, but everything else, all the other credits, go to Disorderly Theatre as a whole rather than individuals.

19/08/2026

To answer a common question:

Can I arrive late?

Of course you can get here late.

No one understands time blindness better than we do. We are a neurodiverse theatre company at every level.

Most people end up coming 5-10mins late. Occasionally 20.

Some even have come 30mins early, which is okay too, but I will still be setting up the room and building up the brain space to teach (neurodiverse facilitator XD).

There's a corner you can chill for a bit if you come early, which I will be prioritising getting set up each day.

I often put quizzes, theatre clips, etc., on the screen to entertain people as we "gather the troupes".

There are stim toys, water, and even board games and books.

Of course, we'd prefer you arrived on the dot (at 2pm) as it means we can do more of the fun collaborative stuff as soon as possible, but we get it, life happens.

An overexplanation of "time blindness":

At the end of the day, even though we know that neurodivergent artists often make the most thought-provoking and out-of-the-box art, we also are disabled in other ways and for quite a lot; one of the disabling symptoms is "time blindness," where time tracking can sometimes be seemingly impossible.

This leads to regular, repeated patterns in being late or even incredibly early. Sometimes, people can adapt their routines to accommodate this; however, especially for those who are often distracted, one small distraction like spotting a plane in the sky can lead to a person unintentionally standing motionless watching that plane, unaware that though they believed they stood there for a second, minutes passed and they end up late.

It's not a choice.
It's not laziness.

We get it XD You are gooooood.

19/08/2026

There has been some confusion about our new buzzer door system. When trying to get in, please press the button marked "classroom" and I'll pick up the phone and let you in. This is for security purposes and helps keep everyone using the building safe.

Alternatively, if I do not pick up the phone (I may be on the loo or, if a class has begun, I may be preoccupied with teaching and not hear the buzzer), please press the button marked "reception". State you are here for "DisOrderly Theatre" and the receptionist should let you in.

Please sign in when you arrive if you can. If you need help with this, please tell me via the speaker system on arrival or speak to the receptionist. You also need to sign out when you leave due to fire safety protocols (it means we know who is left behind in the building during a fire, and it helps firefighters to help you). I will remind you about the sign-in sheet at the end of each session.

13/08/2026

Welcome to our new location. St Chads Community Project, Gateshead. We now run every Tuesday from 2-4pm.

3 free spaces per class, carers attend free and general admission is only £5.

We are a neurodivergent led theatre company for neurodivergent adults and carers.

We are participant led and learn various theatre skills, from acting, to script writing, directing, stage design and costume/prop design.

We are currently working on a play that is a hilarious experiment of the "yes, and..." excercise.

We are also working on a short immersive piece on immagration and fast fasion that is dependant on funding.

New people can join in at any point of the year because each class is a workshop in its own right.

We have a combination of verbal and non verbal members.

We are also looking at running informal free socials outside of class times to increase the social and personal relationships of our regular members.

07/08/2026

From Sabrina Cruickshank (founder/facilator/artistic director)

To think, I used to attend St Chad's Community Project's out of school kids club as a kid. Now I'm back as an adult, running my own classes for DisOrderly Theatre. It really has come full circle.

With our reduced entry cost and everything this new location offers, we hope more people can join us and experience what we do.

We're still a brand new project, only a month and a half in, but we've already seen the difference this work makes to the people who come along. We'd love for more of the community to see that difference for themselves, and we're working hard to build the kind of public presence that reflects what we're creating here.

Looking ahead, we're planning to offer free spaces for all and invest further in our members as the project grows.

We currently have one full-length play in development, and we've also started thinking about an immersive theatre piece. It's a piece I've performed before as a student at the university, and it's ready to go out now, but I want to rework it to include our members and a special guest collaborator, so watch this space.

Everything I've learnt, I've been passing on, including university-level skills. So far our members have covered:

Communication types
Street theatre
Guerrilla theatre
Circus arts (hula hoop and clowning)
Performance art
Theatre analysis skills
Actor training
Improvisation
Failure and recovery
Verbatim theatre
Storyboarding
Dialogue writing
How theatre can help us in day-to-day life
Presence and ownership
Directing
How to give effective constructive criticism
Defining theatre
Removing inhibitions to let creativity flow without boundaries

We'll be revisiting each of these in more depth, and there's so much more theatre out there still to explore. What types of theatre would you love to see us cover next? Let us know in the comments!

04/08/2026

Big news (well, potentially big news!) from Disorderly Theatre 📢

We're currently considering relocating our sessions to St Chads Community Project and reducing our hours from 3 to 2, and we wanted to bring you all along for the conversation.

Here's what this could mean for you:

✅ More free spaces. By reducing our room costs, we'll be able to open up extra free places for members

✅ Lower general admission, with savings passed straight on to you

✅ Supporting our local community. St Chads do brilliant work locally, and this move would mean our fees go directly toward supporting that

We're also looking at shifting to an evening slot on Tuesdays, finishing at 8pm, but before anything is locked in, we want to hear from you.

What days and times work best for you? Drop a comment or send us a message; your feedback will directly shape this decision.

More updates to follow soon. Thank you for being part of this journey with us! 🎭

https://stchadscommunityproject.org/

21 Liddell Terrace, Gateshead NE8 1YN

Welcome to St Chad's! Read more about what we do here and click on the different pages to find out more information.

26/07/2026

We're looking for a room. Free, or reduced cost.

Right now, we charge £10 per person for a 3 hour weekly session. We also offer 2 free spaces per class for anyone who needs one.

We only charge at all because the room we use costs us £60 a week. If the room was free, the sessions would be too.

We're entirely run by volunteers. Every penny goes on space, not salaries.

If you have a room in Gateshead sitting empty at any point in the week, a hall, a studio, a community space, we'd love to talk. We're actively looking for free or reduced cost venues so we can lower or drop the cost for our members altogether.

We're based in Gateshead, for Gateshead and the surrounding areas, and we intend to stay that way. Moving further afield to chase a cheaper room isn't something we're willing to do. It would just isolate the Gateshead members we exist for.

If you can help us stay local, get in touch.