18/3/2014

Youth Theatre – Week 2

Week two of the Freedom Studios Youth Theatre and it’s all going pretty well. Despite my fear of having no attendees in the first week, we had plenty of young people come along who we’d done taster workshops with and we now have a dedicated group of young people. However, with that come inherent issues – issues that have already surfaced.

When a group begins, any group, for any purpose, a status quo is established from the moment those people walk in the door. But our Youth Theatre is a gradual build, hopefully with one or two new people joining every week for at least a few months.

I’m already learning that once an identity has formed, it’s a big challenge to attempt to break up that identity and create a new one; especially when that new one will be, in some way, broken up again the following week. But in this internal struggle I am sticking to my guns and insisting that we have new people starting, yet how do I keep the movement of people into the group whilst not destroying the identity of the youth theatre?

We have very new attendees next week who have never been before, so I will learn something new from that I hope!