Young Company
In September 2010 we launched the Young Company - a two-year project in partnership with Warwickshire Early Intervention Service, Stratford College and Warwickshire's Secondary headteachers. The aim of the project was to explore what impact the RSC could have on a small group of local students who might otherwise never find themselves here.
The group taking part in the first year of the project took weekly sessions which included theatre skills, theatre trips and sessions with different departments at the RSC. Highlights included:
- Working with RSC artists including Michael Boyd (Artistic Director), Cicely Berry (Director of Voice), Struan Leslie (Head of Movement)
- Performing in their own production of Hamlet alongside RSC actors
- Visiting the RSC Roundhouse season in London
- Representing the RSC at an event at the House of Lords.
During the year, participants completed the Bronze Arts Award Shakespeare Challenge - for most of the group, this is their first formal qualification.
In September 2011, the group began Year 2 of their journey: exploring and collaborating with the RSC in a wider sense.
This year, the students are working towards their Silver Arts Award and taking part in two significant events as part of the World Shakespeare Festival:
- Friday 4 May 2012 - The Young Company stage an RSC first - a 'Building Takeover' - as they produce an event in the Swan Theatre to engage their friends in Shakespeare and the RSC.
The line-up for the event includes acclaimed teenager poet Toby Thompson
- Tuesday 24 July 2012 - The Young Company perform Henry V in the Swan Theatre. The creative team for this production includes Cicely Berry and Lowkey - an internationally acclaimed British-Iraqi hip-hop artist.
In Year 2, we hope the group will learn about the different departments involved in creating theatre, and this might lead them to consider a career in the arts. We will then support the Young Company students as they make decisions about their further education.
'Undoubtedly [this is] one of the most powerful and successful theatre outreach programmes that any of [these] schools have been involved in: I cannot praise highly enough the project which took disengaged and disadvantaged young people and made a positive and significant impact on their lives.'
David Williams, Headteacher, Stratford High School, 2011
The Young Company partner schools and organisations are:
- Early Intervention Service
- Campion School and Community College
- Myton School
- North Leammington Community School and Arts College
- Norton College
- Pound Lane Pupil Referral Unit
- River House School
- Shipston High School
- Stratford-upon-Avon High School
- Welcombe Hills School
Photo by Rob Freeman shows RSC actor Dharmesh Patel with Matt from the Young Company in their production of Hamlet in 2011 © RSC
The RSC Young Company is generously supported by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation.