Bridget Keehan - Director of community engagement at Sherman Cymru

Dear Judie and Richard

When I graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1993, myself and several other students, who went on to set up Alma Theatre, planned to move to Manchester because we were concerned that by staying in Wales we would not encounter a broad and diverse range of international artists who could inspire and further our theatrical development, then we discovered CPR and decided to remain in Wales.

Thanks to CPR's inspired artistic programme we were able to train and have dialogues with a wide variety of practitioners from across the globe such as Enrique Pardo, Richard Shechner, Kristin Linklater to name just a few and we were exposed to unforgetable work. More recently CPR have given me the opportunity to work with artists such as Annet Hennman who has inspired my theatre work in prison. In my current role as director of community engagement at Sherman Cymru where I am required to develop mentoring opportunities for refugee artists it is my experience of working with CPR that I will draw upon as an example of great mentoring practise. The presence of CPR has been crucial to my development and also to many other artists working in Wales. To so significantly undermine their ability to function seems to me an impoverished and short sighted decision that limits the ability of Wales to have significant cultural connection with the international performance community.

I sincerely hope for the future of excellent international performance work in Wales that this decison will be quickly revoked.

yours sincerely
Bridget Keehan
Director of community engagement at Sherman Cymru