1 December 1998
An exclusive performance of Lee Hall's award-winning play, "Spoonface Steinberg", about a young girl suffering from cancer, is to be staged for specialist cancer nurses, and other health professionals, studying at the Institute of Cancer Research in Chelsea, to help them in understanding the feelings and concerns of cancer patients.
The play, which will be privately performed on Tuesday 1 December at the London Oratory School Arts Centre, was first broadcast on Radio 4 to unprecedented public reaction. It is a deeply moving and thought-provoking story of the experiences of a young autistic girl, Spoonface, who is terminally ill with cancer and coming to terms with her own existence. The production marks the play's stage premier.
The performance will be hosted by Jessica Corner, who is the first Professor of Cancer Nursing at the Institute of Cancer Research, and Director of the Institute's Centre for Cancer and Palliative Care Studies, on Fulham Road. Following the performance, nurses from the Centre, and other health professionals from both the Institute and the Royal Marsden, will be invited to participate in a discussion, designed to help them to explore healthcare issues raised by the play and discuss aspects of working with, and communicating about, cancer.
Professor Corner comments, "The project has great potential for use in developing health care professionals in their work
and will give teaching staff at the Centre an opportunity to assess this new approach to training specialist nurses, doctors and therapists."
This unique training initiative is the result of a collaboration between the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth and the Plymouth Oncology Centre (Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust) which aims to use the play as part of a "theatre in education" research project.
Teaching staff from the Institute in Fulham will be able to evaluate the benefits of the project when they take part in a workshop, on Wednesday 2 December, which will respond to the themes of the play and which will combine "interactive" drama with more traditional training methods.
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