Means of Production  Community Arts

Creative workshops, theatre arts, education, festival, culture, research

MOP and Devon Youth Theatre

This year’s summer production by Devon Youth Theatre (DYT) was Unhappy The Land That Needs Heroes, a play directed by Tiffany Strawson, written by MOP artistic director Jon Croose and managed by DAISI, the Devon Arts In Schools Initiative.

The show, which featured live film, video, live action, dance and script, was developed over several weekends of devising by a team of the county’s most talented young actors.

Using the theme of heroes as as their starting point, the Company of twenty 14-16 year olds explored a dramatic universe in which the world was coming to an end, a young girl had a religious vision, and a secretive, rogue government sought to gain global power. DYT members then worked intensively for one week alongside six arts professionals to bring the piece to performance.

The intensive week ended with two performances at Isca College, Exeter and The Plough Arts Centre, Torrington.

In July 2006 DAISI asked one of DYT’s current young performers to write an article about his DYT Summer School experience so far. Here is his report.

This year’s Devon Youth Theatre auditions were brilliant to take part in. Never before have I seen such creativity and ingenuity in one room. Saturday was when the group workshops took place. All the auditionees participated in both dance and physical theatre workshops run by Tiff and Jon, which challenged our established perceptions of how we can use our bodies to convey a message, story or emotion.

We were then set a script work task where we were given a short extract and asked to work in pairs to create a performance to show the rest of the group. Everyone enjoyed the task and all the performances were varied and of a high quality.

The Sunday saw the individual auditions take place. Each auditionee was asked to prepare a Shakespearean monologue and a self-devised piece to perform to Tiff, Jon and DAISI trustee James Hennessy. It was a nerve-wracking experience but everyone tried their best to put you at ease and to get the best performance from you. I can only imagine the difficulty faced by the ‘judges’ in trying to whittle down the applicants to a final cast.

All in all the audition weekend was great fun and very informative, and everyone, whether successful or not, gained a lot from the experience be it new friends, new skills or even a new outlook on performing.

Jacob Diggle

To find out more about Devon Youth Theatre contact DAISI at admin@daisi.org.uk