Catherine
Makin never went to a youth theatre when she was growing up. As curator of
Chrysalis, a three-day festival of work by young theatre companies that opens
today at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, she is more than making up for that
now. Makin has been projects co-ordinator of Youth Theatre Arts Scotland since
2017, and is overseeing the fourth edition of Chrysalis, which follows the differently
styled summer’s National Festival of Youth Theatre. Where NFYT is a mass
gathering of youth theatre clans, Chrysalis is a more public-facing platform of
ambitious new work that plays with form and ideas in a professional theatre
environment.
“Chrysalis
is a festival of new work that’s been made over the last two years by young
companies between the ages of about 14 to 25,” Makin explains. “It’s a bit
different in form and content than what people might expect youth theatre to
be. It’s maybe a bit more ambitious, and has to be of a really high quality,
and to have stuff coming in by companies from within Scotland as well as
further afield is really important.”
This
year’s Chrysalis sees four companies take part. From Berlin, Germany, Junges
Ensemble Marabu present There is A Globe Stuck in My Throat, which looks at the
effect of displaced refugees in an increasingly fractured world. Shaking The
Habitual sees Glasgow’s Platform Young Company questioning the world’s ongoing
state of political turmoil.
In
NOISE, Camden Youth Theatre explore an internal sound world that offers respite
from the barrage of noise beyond it. Under the banner of Activising For Change,
147HZ Can’t Pass sees young theatre maker Ink Asher Hemp presents a personal
celebration of queer trans non-binary experience developed as part of Scottish
Youth Theatre’s Making Space programme for young artists to develop their own
work.
Beyond
the full performances, Emergence will see three young companies present a
series of works in progress. On top of this, a new strand called Creative
Buddies will see four youth groups paired with professional organisations.
Vanishing Point, Stellar Quines, Magnetic North and Puppet Animation Scotland
will work with the groups to help develop their work beyond the festival.
“It’s
been really exciting watching how Chrysalis has developed,” says Makin, who was
working at the festival’s host venue, the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, when
it began four years ago. “There’s so much going on just now, and hopefully one
of the things that will come out of Chrysalis is that people will realise that
it’s not a niche thing, but is something that audiences of all ages can engage
with. We want to build on that, and to tour work internationally as well.”
Chrysalis
arrives towards the end of the Scottish Government backed Year of Young People,
which scored a something of an own goal at the start of the year when arts
funding quango Creative Scotland declined to give any young people’s theatre company
regularly funded status. While some of these decisions were hastily reversed, given
the context they originally came from, it wasn’t a good look.
Whatever
the Year of Young People may or may not have achieved, young people’s theatre at
every level has been making waves a home and abroad long before any such branding
occurred. This is borne out by the level of activity currently ongoing.
Chrysalis follows last week’s twentieth anniversary of the Lyceum Youth
Theatre, the group set up at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, and which
is now one of the largest youth theatre groups in the country.
To
celebrate, having already made their annual presentation of new work at the
Traverse, LYT presented #TheViewFrom2038, five new plays which imagined what
life might be like in various ways twenty years from now. These were written by poet and performer Jenny
Lindsay, former LYT member Isla Cowan, founder of the Dunbar-based Coastworld
festival Hannah Lavery, Theatre503 International Playwriting Award winner
Andrew Thompson and up and coming playwright Rosanna Hall.
“It
was a really great night,” says Lyceum Youth Theatre director Rachael Esdale,
who oversaw 150 participants take part in the five plays. “Seeing everyone on
the Lyceum stage with all the resources the theatre gave the young people a
real sense of ownership. The whole notion that children should be seen and not heard
just isn’t valid anymore, and young people more than ever are wanting to
express how they feel about what’s going on in the world, and theatre is a
really good way of doing that.”
Founding
director of LYT was Steve Small, who, after leaving to set up a similar
operation at Dundee Rep, returned to Edinburgh to co-found Strange Town Theatre
with fellow director Ruth Hollyman. Based at Out of the Blue Drill Hall, the
company began with one workshop. Today, while youth theatre is one strand of
Strange Town’s work, as the company celebrates its tenth year of operation, it
has become an umbrella operation for a young theatre company that performs semi-professionally,
and also operates a young actors’ agency as well as continuing to run workshops
across assorted age ranges in schools and elsewhere.
“Strange
Town is independent from the big theatre buildings,” says Small, “but there is
a lot of crossover. Four or five Strange Town members are part of LYT, and that’s
because they’re really keen, and everyone is really supportive of each other.”
Strange
Town recently toured a production of David Greig’s play Dr Korczak’s Example.
Since then, in co-production with Fast Forward, an organisation set up to promote
healthy lifestyles for young people, and the No Lives Better Lives initiative,
the company has produced Jennifer Adam’s lay, Balisong, which was nominated for
a Herald Society Award. The culmination of Strange Town’s tenth anniversary
celebrations will see Balisong performed alongside Sam Siggs’ play, Love Bites.
“Strange
Town is in a stronger position than we’ve ever been,’ says Small. “The great
thing about youth theatre is that if the kids don’t like something then they
won’t come, but in the times we’re living in, there seems to be something about
live theatre that allows young people to communicate and express things in ways
they don’t seem to happen elsewhere.”
This
is something Makin recognises is similarly at the heart of Chrysalis.
“For
a lot of young people,” she says, “youth theatre is a community for them to
come to, and it’s a chance for them to explore things that concern them both
personally and politically. For someone like me who was never part of a youth
theatre, to hear young people talking about these things is amazing.”
Chrysalis
runs at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from tonight until Saturday. Full
details and tickets from www.traverse.co.uk.
Lyceum Youth Theatre’s current activities can be found at www.lyceum.org.uk. Strange Town Theatre
present Balisong and Love Bites at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh,
December 5. www.strangetown.org.uk
The Herald, November 15th 2018
ends
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