Siobhan Noble And Her Business, Drops of Light CIC, Brings Arts To The Community 🙌

Drops of Light CIC are a community focused theatre production company which launched just over a year ago in February 2017. The business is run by Siobhan Noble alongside her business partner; James Lacey.

Prior to starting Drops of Light, Siobhan ran Liverpool fringe venue; The Lantern Theatre from 2011 until its closure in 2016, producing a number of the venues in-house productions and coordinating the popular Shine New Festival. Whilst Siobhan was running the The Lantern Theatre she met her now business partner, James Lacey and as proceedings began to close down she began speaking to James about working on a new project together…Drops of Light CIC.

‘We knew that we wanted to do something together and spoke about doing pantomime but doing it differently and getting the community involved through offering training opportunities to them.’

This is when Siobhan got back in touch with The Women’s Organisation. Siobhan knew about our services as she had accessed them when setting up The Lantern Theatre so was confident that we would be able to support her in her new adventure!

Siobhan Noble

‘I thought it would be a good idea to get some support from the team at The Women’s Organisation as Drops of Light was really different to The Lantern Theatre in terms of setting it up. I took over The Lantern business, whereas this time we were starting from scratch.’

The pair were teamed up with Senior Business Adviser, Janine Hyland who has a 

specialism in social enterprises and community interest companies. Siobhan says; ‘Janine was brilliant and really helpful Things that I would never think of, she would always think about! She made the whole process really smooth.’

James Lacey

Siobhan and James soon formed their new business Drops of Light CIC and decided they wanted to create engaging theatre that is inclusive of the wider community. Their first production was to be ‘Beauty and the Beast’, a Christmas pantomime!

‘Beauty and the Beast’ rand throughout December at central Liverpool venue, The Black-E and Siobhan told us that;

‘The production was run collaboratively between professional actors and creatives, working alongside community groups who will be guided through workshops by a range of industry professionals. We had over 150 participants in the whole of the process, which was just amazing!’

As an organisation, Drops of Light CIC is incredibly focussed on the power that theatre can have within communities and has been providing training and experience to members o Liverpool City Region for a range of backgrounds.

Siobhan told us; ‘We ran a series of workshops which lasted for twelve weeks in advance of the production. These offered participants the opportunity to gain valuable skills in a range of theatrical disciplines.’

James Lacey, Siobhan’s business partner told us that he believes; ‘Access to the arts is invaluable, we hope through our workshops and hands on experience that participants will build both skills and confidence in the creative industry.’

The workshops were available to all ages and abilities and were free to everyone! Facilitated by industry professionals they included a range of skills such as acting, choreography, script writing, set design and building, costume designing, event management and marketing.

And as well as this, Siobhan and James have now secured funding to facilitate paid internships for young people across the region and are growing the business, focussing on producing 3 or 4 shows per year with an attached programme of training for the community. There really is some incredible work for the arts is being done by Drops of Light CIC.

If you want to find out more about Drops of Light CIC, you can visit their website, Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with what they’re up to!

And, if you’ve been inspired by Siobhan and James and would like support to start your own business get in touch with us today! Email us on hello@thewo.org.uk or ring us on 0151 706 8111.