In the spotlight: performers from Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation, the BRIT School and the Churchill Theatre Young Company have taken part in the NT Connections festival
Young people across London – including from Croydon, Sutton and Bromley – have been taking part in nationwide celebrations of the National Theatre Connections’ 30th anniversary.
Connections is the National Theatre’s annual youth theatre festival, where youngsters from across Greater London perform new plays. In total, 35 youth theatre groups are taking part in the festival.
The Theatre Peckham festival was the third festival to take place nationwide, and featured some local groups: the BRIT School performed Brain Play, by Chloe Lawrence-Taylor and Paul Sirret, at Theatre Peckham last month, while Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation performed Normalised, by Amanda Verlaque, there in March, too.
Coming up later this month and in May, the Churchill Theatre Young Company is performing No Regrets, by Gary McNair, at The Tramshed Theatre (April 26), while Sutton’s Glenthorne High School is performing Normalised on May 7 at Southwark Playhouse.
As part of the nationwide celebration, more than 5,500 young people from more than 270 companies and schools across are performing from 10 commissioned plays.
Ten groups will then be selected to perform their play on the Dorfman stage at the National Theatre Connections Festival in June.
Playwrights who have helped to launch their careers by writing pieces for NY Connections in the past include Jack Thorne, Chris Bush, Lenny Henry, James Graham and Alice Birch, while some of the youngsters who have performed on stage on gone on to become household names are the likes of David Oyelowo, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Callum Scott Howells and Keira Knightley.
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