Youth empowerment: Icon Theatre and the Theatre31 project

Youth Performance Partnerships, a Government-funded initiative delivered by the Arts Council, aims to inspire children and young people deprived of access to creative activity in five areas of the country – Derby, Salford, Croydon, Plymouth and Medway.

As luck would have it, the three and a half year project was due to launch in June 2020 when the world was in the grip of the worst pandemic in living memory. It soon became clear that the best laid plans of all those cultural planners would need a radical re-think.

‘We felt we had to do anything we could to make things happen despite the restrictions of the pandemic,’ says Nancy Hirst, artistic director of Theatre31, the programme serving Medway and Sheppey, and founder of the Medway-based community theatre company Icon. ‘One positive of the pandemic was that it allowed us to reflect on how we engage with young people. So while most of our activities are geared to being in person, some aspects proved to work well digitally.’

Workshops and discussion groups were conducted using Zoom, mediated by lead facilitator Lily Vincent-Frankland, among others. These included the 15-strong Young Artists Collective – a group of teens meeting up online to plan future events and how the Arts Council grant should be allocated – which is all about encouraging those taking part to have agency over the work they created.

Easing into live engagement

In spite of the Covid restrictions, making it difficult for the scheduled schools partnerships to be rolled out in person, Hirst and executive director Daniel King managed to organise for props and costumes to be brought in to some Medway primary schools, enabling students to create their own dramas in the classroom.

The easing of restrictions in summer 2021 enabled Theatre31 to commission some outdoor activities for schools including Paper Balloon Theatre's create-your-own sea shanty music video, and the all-women circus company, Circo Rum Ba Ba who provided a readymade outdoor Christmas show that toured seven local primary schools over ten days.

Feedback from the schools commended Theatre31 for enabling young people's voices to be heard and valued, sharing skills and resources, and improving social cohesion.

Integrating culture across the community

An important aspect of YPP's work is to make children and young people more aware of the range of cultural opportunities and services in their region, and how they can access them.

One of the most successful aspects of the programme occurred when Theatre31 commissioned spoken word artist and exoffender Lady Unchained, aka Brenda Birungi, to work with inmates of the Cookham Wood Young Offenders Institute at the invitation of their recruitment officer Sophie Castle.

Nancy Hirst says of this initiative, ‘It has been one of the most transformative programmes in terms of the huge impact it had. We had these young men saying to us that they were thinking differently about life after their release, as a result of the programme. It's definitely one of the things Icon wants to take forward as a company, and we've received match funding that will allow the programme to run for at least a year.’

One participant testimonial reads as follows: ‘Some of the experiences I've had, they've really helped me decide what kind of industry I would like to go into in the future. I'm toying with the idea of becoming an actor or a playwright.’

Theatre and drama for everyone

Undeterred by the inaccessibility of the Isle of Sheppey for long periods during the pandemic, Theatre31 made it the location for a Coming Out of Covid summer festival in 2021, as well as setting up a youth theatre on the island.

Looking ahead, Hirst is optimistic that this year's lifting of restrictions will enable her facilitators to be more hands-on in the remaining months of the programme.

This spring sees the launch of Big Dreams, a digital theatre project, working with D-Live, the UK's only deaf theatre company. Artistic director Steven Vevers-Webb will lead the project through a series of workshops, developing skills in film-making, editing, 3D art and visual storytelling. Their work will be fully supported by professional artists from D-Live but the final project will be entirely youth-led.

In the autumn, Theatre31 will be commissioning a show that invites young audiences to experience Shakespeare's Macbeth by candlelight and explore their stage combat skills.

In the year prior to September 2021, Theatre31 had worked with 54 schools and delivered 217 workshops. By September this year, Theatre31 will have established four local theatre bases across Medway and Sheppey, providing free access to after-school activity. They will be at the Brook Theatre, Chatham; the Academy of Woodlands, Gillingham; the Sheppey Healthy Living Centre, Sheppey; and the Hoo Village Hall, Hoo Peninsula.

http://www.theatre31.co.uk