Wandsworth

Last weekend I was on a train to Wigan for NAYT’s Raising the Game (North). Today I’m at ALRA in Wandsworth for the Southern version and I’m thinking about what we as artists need to do to raise the profile, quality and impact of our work with young people.

It’s not enough to demand the big venues just give us space, whatever we’ve made. Too often our work is staged by big theatres out of obligation and a kind of paternalism. And quite often that work has not been developed, thought-through or rehearsed enough.

We need to making rigorous, distinctive, relevant work with young people. We need to be making it for the audiences we most want to change. And we need to earn the right to be programmed in big venues on an equal basis as work made with professional performers.

But how? Here are some thoughts ...

1. Take more time. Too often we make work too quickly. No professional company would try and make an hour-long play in 12 weekly 3 hour rehearsals, so why do we?

2. Develop things in stages. We make plays too quickly and then we abandon them. We move on before we've really understood or finished the play. Great work happens when we go back to a play after we've performed it, re-develop it and improve it. This also gives young people more of a chance to author and influence a production. It's so much easier to comment on something and change it once it's been made.

3. Stop apologising. Someone asked me why every youth theatre director stands outside their show saying things like "oh it's been so hard, KJ broke his leg and no-one learned their lines until yesterday". There's a defensiveness we exhibit that sours the work before it is seen and it often comes from having too little time/resource - and from over-selling the work. Calling something "professional quality" (or even making a professional looking poster) if the play was made really quickly/in difficult circumstances harms the way the audience sees it

4. Be honest about what you're sharing. Tell your audiences upfront that this is a scratch, or early draft of a piece. They'll react enthusiastically, it'll take the pressure off everyone and they'll give you great feedback at the end. We buy pizza for any audience that comes and sees an early draft of our shows, which buys us their support and time to talk about what they saw.

5. Ask for development time. When we made Brainstorm, the National Theatre gave us time in the NT Studio, dramaturgical and production management support. They didn't guarantee a theatre slot, they guaranteed support. We should fight for support - the exposure will follow.

6. Play to our strengths. Youth theatre has things that no-one else does. Big casts, uninhibited performers, big ideas, teenage perspective. Prioritise and celebrate these things, they are magic, unique, transformative ingredients. Especially the last one. But ...

7. Stop having big casts just for the sake of it. We should only have huge casts if the show needs it, not because funders demand it or because that's how schools are set up or because we feel validated by working with 30 young people at once.

It should be possible to have one-person youth theatre shows. Or four-handers. Or whatever.

8. Love your audience. The friends and family of your young people are the audiences all theatres want. Celebrate them. Cultivate them. Make work aimed at them. Don't abandon them just because you think a ‘real’ theatre audience is more valuable, or validating.

9. Celebrate your role as an adult artist. It's disingenuous to say things like "it's all their own words/work". It's not. It's their work and your work, together. A meeting of experience and artistry (on both sides). Celebrate that, it'll liberate the way you create work.

10. Look after yourself. Artists working with young people are terrible at looking after their own artistic development. Spend time training, thinking, learning.

11. Most importantly - advocate for all of the above. Talk to funders about the conditions you need and why you need them. Ask large influential organisations to model them. Join together with other companies to assert their importance. Share resources and experience.