It is with great sadness that we share the sad news of the passing of our friend and colleague, John Doona.
John worked with Peshkar in 2008 on our production of ‘Siege’ by Tajinder Singh Hayer, which he directed for a cast of young people from Oldham, Manchester and Cheshire, where he was the advisory teacher for Drama.
John’s relationship with Peshkar had grown out of working with Peshkar artistic director Jim Johnson when he was Associate Director at Chester Gateway Theatre. Their fruitful collaboration inspired the Cheshire County Youth Theatre production of Edward Bond’s ‘Arcade’ which Jim directed and John produced in 2006.
Following this, they further developed the idea of bringing young people from different backgrounds together using theatre as the construct in the production of Siege which played to audiences of young people in Chorlton, Oldham, Crewe and the Specialist Schools teachers conference in Liverpool at the Echo Arena.
As Peshkar moved away from pure theatre into a wider multi-platform, cross arts approach, John consolidated his reputation as a leading figure in the young people’s participatory theatre and education sector as the artistic director of North West Drama Services where he established the ground breaking Children’s Shakespeare Festival involving primary school children in the opportunity to explore the bard’s work in new and innovative ways.
Peshkar would like to send their love and best wishes to John’s wife Heather and children Chris, Tom and Mia at this difficult time.
You can watch a video of the making of Siege here…
