Pilot Theatre: Combining artistry and education

For over 40 years, Pilot Theatre has been making adventurous and ambitious work for younger audiences. Founded in 1981, the company has been based in York since 2001, but its work regularly tours the UK. Recent shows have included stage versions of Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses and Zana Fraillon's The Bone Sparrow, while its most recent show, A Song for Ella Grey, based on David Almond's relocation of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth to the northeast, has been sensitively adapted for the stage by playwright Zoe Cooper.

Its work doesn't shy away from complexity and nuance. It is often formally inventive and never talks down to its audience, intended to connect with teenagers and young people on their own level, to tell stories that speak to them, always with an awareness that for many in the audience this may be their first experience of live theatre, and the inherent responsibility that comes with that.