Mapping England's Youth Theatres

Over the last fifteen years or more, I’ve worked with hundreds - maybe thousands - of youth theatres, most of them in England.

I’ve spent time with Mortal Fools in Northumberland, the Hippodrome in Birmingham, Prime in Swindon, and the Landmark in Devon. I’ve trained artists from Cornwall, Manchester, Norwich and Carlisle. Hundreds of groups across the country have made plays using blueprints that I’ve written.

So I know, more than almost anyone, how vital and inspiring our youth theatre sector is. How much it changes the lives of young people, advances the careers and practice of professional artists, and feeds our industry with ideas and talent.

But in all that time, and in all that work, I have never been able to say with any confidence just how big youth theatre is. I have no idea how many young people participate in it on a weekly basis. Or how much money it turns over. Or what it needs in order to thrive and grow.

No-one knows. There is no single comprehensive database of youth theatres.

Until now.

A year or so ago, a group of independent youth theatres who were also National Portfolio Organisations, came together to share practice and work together to advocate and support our sector. It’s a small group, because there are very few NPO youth theatres - just seven or eight, depending on how you define things.

I mean, that as a starting point is pretty sad - fewer than 10 youth theatre NPOs.

One of the things we wanted to do was better understand our sector, and so we created the 2024 Youth Theatre Census. I’ve been leading it on behalf of them, with the expertise of the brilliant Ruth Stevenson of Ruthless Research, who has already successfully delivered a similar survey for the equally brilliant Youth Theatre Arts Scotland.

We hope that over the next month hundreds of youth theatres fill in the census. It takes around 20 minutes and it comes in two parts - a section that will eventually become an open-access database, so young people can find youth theatres, and youth theatres can find each other - and an anonymous dataset that will help us write a report on the state of youth theatre in this country. What it can offer and what it needs.

I hope that we’ll be able to demonstrate just how expansive and valuable youth theatre is. No longer an easily ignored part of our industry, but a powerhouse of young expression. We’ll be writing a big report on it all, and sharing it with everyone in the autumn.

Before that, we need everyone to spread the word and fill it in.