by Lamorna Ash, the playwright.

The idea for Circleville, Circlevalley grew out of a sustained conversation between Sammy Glover, the director, and I about the role of dramatherapy and theatre as a therapeutic device in the present day. Last year, both Sammy and I spent time working at charities that use drama as a training tool for vulnerable members of society. I worked as a volunteer at the women-only charity Clean Break, which provides theatre training courses for women who have been in the criminal justice system or are at risk of offending, to help towards rehabilitation, while Sammy was an associate director at the Big House, which works with young people that have been through the care system to make their voices heard through theatre. Having both been lucky enough to experience the immense power of these two charities, Sammy and I felt compelled to tell a story about the therapeutic possibilities of drama in a theatrical format.

Dramatherapy is a practise that centres around the use of metaphor. The members of the group create - through different role plays, myth-making and dramatic improvisational games - a play-version of aspects of their own lives so at view them from a metaphorical distance, often called the 'fictional present'. I found the theatrical potential of this metaphorical play-world hugely appealing and it forms the basis of the play.

Using the myth-making, imaginative tools of dramatherapy I have written a play that straddles two very different worlds: the paint-flaked, pot-holed reality of Circleville, Circlevalley with its graffiti-covered community centre, and the fantastical world of the 'fictional present' explored by the patients. Where they are chained to their realities in Circleville, the fictional present allows them the opportunity to escape to the moon, to a mid-apocalyptic world and to a giant-scale, immersive version of whack-a-mole.

Our early rehearsals in a boat house next to the Isis river allowed us to explore the creative potential of dramatherapy, taking advantage of dramatherapy techniques that we discovered through research and conversations with professional dramatherapists. Practising these real techniques of role plays and various types of dramatic play and improvisation with the actors in character has proved to be an incredibly fruitful approach to developing characters' backgrounds and motivations.

All the spaces that we are touring Circleville, Circlevalley (the studio at the Old Fire Station in Oxford, the Plesance Bunker in Edinburgh and N16 in London) have the advantage of being compact, intimate venues that will allow the audience to feel that they themselves are part of the dramatherapy session. We hope that as the run continues the role of the audience will develop so that they begin to take on a participatory role in the session.

We are creating a piece of theatre that deals with a subject that we are all immensely passionate about. We hope that it will provide an insight into the regenerative, hugely productive power of drama beyond its purely theatrical contexts.

Circleville, Circlevalley runs at the Old Fire Station on Saturday 30th July.

Tickets can be bought online at http://www.oldfirestation.org.uk/event/circleville-circlevalley/