Youth Theatre - catching up with Stan and Eidie

Published on 22 March 2023.

Ahead of our youth theatre sharing, we caught up with two youth theatre members to ask them about the devising process, their performances and what they enjoy most about youth theatre.

First up, we spoke to Stan, who attends the 14-19’s group:

How are rehearsals going for your sharing this month? What is your role in the performance?

The rehearsals are going fine, unfortunately I have had to miss a couple because I’ve had Mock (exams) and I was unwell, however the weeks I was in it have been going fine.

My role in the performance is one of the friends with Ben, doing a couple of scenes just the two of us, and then I’m part of the ensemble.

Can you tell us about the creative process – how did you start devising and developing ideas for the performance?

To create our ideas for the performance, we all sat down in a circle and came together to think about the type of topic we wanted to do, and we used ideas that we had in prior devised pieces in other sessions as help.

Some of the ideas that came up was inny and outty belly buttons (which I thought was slightly mad) and different friendships and how they are split up due to this new rule set by a president (who doesn’t have a belly button)... and that outty people are less than the innys (this is the subject we decided to pick)!

To develop these ideas, we improvised around an idea that was said in an earlier session and we went from there.

After coming up with our ideas, we realised that this topic is quite reminiscent of how things were during Hitler's regime (prejudice towards different minorities and anyone who is just different) so our idea is quite a serious topic amongst the humour, which I think makes for a good piece of theatre, having the mix of both.

How have the Travelling Light facilitators helped you to develop and shape the performance?

The facilitators have helped us devise our performance by bringing us together, checking in with the process throughout our independent improvising and, during our sit down circle chats, they have used some paper and a pen to write down our ideas/structure that we as a collective came up with.

What do you enjoy most about youth theatre sessions?

I enjoy the social aspect of youth theatre sessions, the facilitators, the games :) and generally being creative with others (not school friends, apart from ben!).

I also enjoy being around people that are keen and enthusiastic to be there (unlike school).

And what are you most looking forward to about the sharing this month?

I’m most looking forward to the reaction of the audience to the belly button theme. However, also there is some sadness in the piece. Also, I am looking forward to performing in front of an audience because I enjoy being creative and performing.

Next up, we spoke to Eidie, who attends the 11-13's group:

How are rehearsals going for your sharing this month? What is your role in the performance?

Rehearsals are very enjoyable and fun. My role in the performance is that of the maid / servant.

Can you tell us about the creative process – how did you start devising and developing ideas for the performance?

We all started devising and developing the ideas for the performance through open conversations, all together. We did a spread sheet of what makes us feel uncomfortable and angry and what makes us feel elated and joyful, which we can relate to when performing.

How have the Travelling Light facilitators helped you to develop and shape the performance?

The Traveling Light facilitators have helped me and the group by giving us the tools to perform.

What themes and elements from the story of Belle and Sebastien will audiences recognise in your performance? And how will it differ from this original inspiration material?

The themes and elements about Belle and Sebastien that the audience will notice in our performance is that we neglect anything that's different (the neglection the hats give to the fabrics), this links to how the villagers dislike Belle the big dog and Sebastien the outcast - this is portrayed in the performance.

What do you enjoy most about youth theatre sessions?

The thing I enjoy most about youth theatre sessions is the things we do all together such as interactive games, including EastEnders (a game they play). I’m looking forward to doing some more games at the end of March.

Celebrating young people's creativity and imagination - find out how the Youth Theatre sharing went in our short story here.