Venue focus: Mayflower Theatre

Mayflower Theatre and MAST Mayflower Studios are venues in the centre of Southampton that focus heavily on engaging with their audiences, teachers, schools, and young people. The current participation set up was established by Michael Ockwell in 2013 when he took over the Mayflower Theatre, which has the third biggest seating capacity in the country. Before this there was no department to target this element of its work, and it was his intention to open the theatre to the community.

So, the Engage department was born, and the first initiative was a Summer Youth Project which resulted in the venues first youth production. This summer the venue is presenting its eleventh Summer Youth Project, where they will stage Bugsy Malone with over 160 young people participating.