September Sexual awareness and consent play to tour third-level institutes across Island of Ireland

Along with an updated version of their original research-based play, the Active* Consent team will also launch new “Consent is for Everyone” campaign  

Active* Consent will today launch the new all-Ireland college tour of their original research-based play, The Kinds of Sex You Might Have At College. 

Active Consent*, the University of Galway’s data-led consent education programme, will complement the play with the launch their new digital campaign and short video, “Consent is for Everyone”.  

Following its premiere in Galway, Active* Consent’s original play is hosted by Dublin City University on Tuesday September 20, before visiting 19 other higher education sites on the island of Ireland.  

First toured in 2019, this updated version of The Kinds of Sex You Might Have At College includes new scenes addressing image-based sexual abuse, gender identity and the role of male allies in supporting survivors of sexual violence while preserving the original’s blend of dramatic and humorous approaches to sexuality. 

The theatre tour will be accompanied by Active* Consent’s new campaign “Consent is for Everyone” which also premieres with a new short video available from today on the programme’s Consent Hub, which is co-funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Innovation and Science and the Department of Justice, a unique resource internationally. 

The core message of Active* Consent’s original play and their new campaign is that consent is for everyone - for all relationships, genders and sexualities. Consent is for everything - one night stands, friends with benefits, situation-ships, and long-term relationships.  From kissing, sexting, to foreplay or “all the way” (and everything in between), consent is OMFG - ongoing mutual and freely-given. 

The Kinds of Sex You Might Have At College and new campaign video, created with Tiny Ark Productions, use performance and live action to build on research carried out by the team into student consent and sexual behaviours since 2013 and bring these findings to life with casts drawn from current students and graduates of Drama and Theatre Studies at University of Galway. These same actors also voice an updated version of Active* Consent’s signature online consent workshop that too is being rolled out in Semester 1 across 33 campuses within 18 institutions across the Republic of Ireland and nine UK universities.  

Dr Charlotte McIvor, Active* Consent co-lead and creator, director and co-writer of the original play and “Consent is for Everyone” short video as well as Head of Discipline in Drama and Theatre Studies at University of Galway, said: “Active* Consent is unique nationally and internationally in our continual use of theatre and short film to translate our research into consent and sexual violence into experiences that can reach audiences and spark dialogue in complex ways.  

“Our original play has been in development since 2014 and is continually being updated not only in relationship to our ongoing data-based research, but by the voices of the students and/or alumni who bring the play to life and make sure it is relevant and impactful for the audiences we aim to reach.  We want to reach not only those who already understand and are on board with our message on consent but who may feel challenged by it.  We strongly feel that the creative arts give us a way to reach these kinds of audiences in complex but accessible ways.”  

Active* Consent is currently supported by the Lifes2Good Foundation, Rethink Ireland, University of Galway, with project funding on consenthub.ie and the Further Education & Training sector from the Government of Ireland. 

To find out more about the dates and venues for The Kinds of Sex You Might Have At College visit https://www.consenthub.ie/the-kinds-of-sex-you-might-have-at-college/.

To view the “Consent is For Everyone” short video visit https://www.consenthub.ie/everyone/consent-more-to-know/#video. 

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