NATIONAL YOUTH THEATRE are celebrating their tenth anniversary of its hugely successful rep company.
Over the past ten years the rep has welcomed 154 young performers, 8 young directors and has presented 30 productions, 19 of which were in the West End, reaching over 100 thousand audience members.
In 2012 PAUL ROSEBY, Artistic Director and CEO of National Youth Theatre (NYT), launched a new REP company that would provide intensive real-world experience each year to a group of young performers and creatives. Taking inspiration from the old repertory company model, the NYT REP has sought to bring its training and learning model sharply into the modern era.
As well as presenting theatre, members of the company have performed and created work with NYT at London Fashion Week, This Bright Land and Latitude festivals, the Olympic and Paralympic Team Welcome Ceremony, and Glasgow’s COP26 presenting work that brought young people’s views on the climate crisis to the conference.
Paul told us……
“It’s 10 years since we launched the NYT REP in response to the rise in drama school fees, but the challenges faced by young talent around the UK today is greater than ever with the cost of living crisis and decline of arts in schools. This year’s REP will offer opportunity, entertainment and hope. Young will talent takeover an iconic West End venue with tickets from £10, Bola Agbaje’s award-winning debut is revived offering a welcome shake-up to the curriculum and a young director supported by the Bryan Forbes Bursary reinterprets a classic for our time.
Learning by doing it through a free industry-based audience-facing approach has been a game-changer over the last 10 years, as the REP graduates leading major shows prove. Now more than ever we must support flexible free alternative routes for young talent to take centre stage and bring young talent and audiences back to the West End.”
In this 10th year the NYT REP company led by NYT Associate Director Anna Niland will be made up of: Hannah Zoé Ankrah, Tomás Azocar-Nevin, Eleanor Booth, CHLOE COOPER, Daniel Cawley, Jack D’Arcy, Jez Davess-Humphrey, Jessica Enemokwu, Isolde Fenton, Kira Golightly, Thuliswa Magwaza, Dalumuzi Moyo, Olivia Ng, Jasmine Ricketts, Nathaly Sabino and Jerome Scott. Each year NYT REP members are mentored by industry professional including casting directors, producers and performers.
This year they will be mentored by Isabel Adomakoh Young, Amy Ball, Rikki Beadle-Blair, Johnny Capps, Steffan Donnelly, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Lucianne McEvoy, Ray Fearon, Kane Husbands, Bryony Jarvis-Taylor, Kate Kennedy, Lauren Lyle, Ruth O’Dowd, Amanda Wilkin and Ashley Zhangazha.
Chloe. who’s name is highlighted above, is actually from Aberdare and is rightly proud of the fantastic achievement of making it to the 16 people selected to be a part of NYT’s 10th anniversary this year.
We grabbed Chloe for a chat about life at the National Youth Theatre and to tell us about the production which is on stage right now, BAKKHAI.
As Chloe said, Ancient Greece and gig theatre collide in a boldly reimagined BAKKHAI like you’ve never seen it before. Underscored with original electronic music, filled with celebratory raucous dance and devised with some of Britain’s most exciting new talent from the NYT REP, Bakkhai is directed by Maisie Newman, recipient of the 2022 Bryan Forbes Directors Bursary, at the NYT Workshop Theatre. Maisie will be mentored by Sarah Frankcom as part of her Bryan Forbes Bursary.
For more information and to book tickets, which I can tell you are booking really fast, go HERE.
