Chichester Youth Theatre in national drama festival

Published: 12 April 2014
Reporter: Sheila Connor

Chichester Festival Youth theatre will be taking part in the National Theatre's Connections festival with a new thought-provoking production at the Capitol in Horsham.

The Youth Theatre's Burgess Hill group is staging A Letter to Lacey by Catherine Johnson, an exploration of partner abuse and how it affects not just the couple involved, but their friends and family as well. As well as the drama, there will be musical interludes from Josie Monday and two other local musicians.

The Burgess Hill group was set up a year ago as part of Chichester Festival Theatre's commitment to developing the drama provision for young people in West Sussex.

Luna Russell, CFT's Learning and Participation producer, said: "Taking part in the Connections Festival has been a great opportunity for this group to develop their skills and enjoy the process of working together on this new play.

"As well as encouraging young people to perform on stage, this has also been a fantastic opportunity for the Technical Youth Theatre group based in Horsham to work on the production behind the scenes."

Catherine Johnson is an acclaimed screenwriter and playwright and novelist for young people. This is one of ten new plays that will be performed across the UK by 230 school and youth theatre companies in 26 leading regional theatres.

Ten of these companies will be selected to bring their productions to the National Theatre in July, when 200 young people will have the chance to perform in the Olivier Theatre and The Shed.

A Letter to Lacey is at the Capitol, Horsham at 7PM on 26 April.

*Some links, including Amazon, Stageplays.com, ATG Tickets, LOVEtheatre, BTG Tickets, Ticketmaster, The Ticket Factory, LW Theatres and QuayTickets, are affiliate links for which BTG may earn a small fee at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Are you sure?