What. A. Summer.
This June and July, we brought nearly 300 young people, freelancers and youth theatre leaders together in eight unique Get-Togethers all across the country. In Sheffield, Reading, Liverpool, Plymouth, London, Colchester and Birmingham, we heard from youth theatre people about what they need most.
We talked about access, opportunity, travel, pathways, creative development, connectivity, communication, education and so much more. We started to see connections forming between people and groups: a taste of a future in which youth theatres everywhere work together to support young people’s creativity and leadership.
Our Get-Togethers represent the final part of a two-year research and consultation process that has involved more than 1,000 people from more than 500 youth theatres:
It started with the Youth Theatre Census in 2024 - a huge national survey of more than 400 youth theatres that provided insight into what youth theatres are doing and what they need.
It continued with our event for 150 youth theatre people at Contact Theatre in Manchester in 2025, where we creatively and collectively developed six priority areas for our sector.
We set up the youth theatre map - so that everyone can find a youth theatre near them.
And then the Get-Togethers - an extraordinary national exercise in listening and connection.
Which brings us to the next step. We are now ready to put everything we’ve learned into one big plan for the future of youth theatre:
In September, we will begin to write the first Youth Theatre Together Strategy, informed by the hundreds of voices we’ve heard over the last two years.
We will set up Youth Theatre Together as an organisation in its own right.
We will start to fundraise to deliver our aims.
The new organisation will be up and running by April 2027, and hopefully much sooner.
As we do this, we will share our progress and our ideas through regular online Get-Togethers, for anyone involved in youth theatre to attend, feed in and learn more.
The first online Get-Together takes place on Tuesday 22nd September from 12:00 - 13:30. Save the date and we will send an invitation to sign up in early September.
We have one more in-person Get-Together planned - on Wednesday 30th September at Live Theatre in Newcastle. Get in touch if you would like to attend.
If you have been part of any of our activities over the last two years - thank you for your input and ideas. If you have not, we look forward to connecting with you soon.
The future of youth theatre is bright!
Get-Together attendees told us:
“This felt so important and helped to demystify the false idea that we can't all work together as arts organisations and artists. This gave me hope for improvement and change. “
"I really enjoyed it! It was cool that there were mixes of young people and facilitators and I loved getting to meet and learn from the other youth theatres. It was also really cool to do the activities with my youth theatre leader because normally she's the one telling us to do that kinda stuff, and it was interesting to see how she does it and learn from her in a different way.”
Get-Together Photography courtesy of: Zbigniew Kotkiewi, Will Green, Tyler Whiting
