New Connections
New Connections 2010/11
Application for the next cycle of the programme will open in May 2010. If you would like to be informed when the registration period will open, please join the discover: mailing list.
To contact New Connections, please email youth@nationaltheatre.org.uk
Executive Summary
Over the past six months, discover: National Theatre has undertaken an in-depth review of New Connections, one of a series of initiatives to renew the long-running youth theatre programme. These include a number of developments to the current cycle, two new pilot strands of activity introduced in 2007/08 and 2008/09 designed to widen participation in New Connections, and separate evaluation of the 2009 cycle with participants, due to report in September 2009.
New Connections is both a large-scale new writing programme, and the largest of Discover's participatory programmes for young people. It has commissioned more than 100 new plays from established playwrights for performers aged between 11 and 19, designed to engage young people with the best new theatre writing. The programme is run in partnership with 15 regional theatres, each of which presents a festival of performances by young people. New Connections culminates in a celebratory summer festival at the National Theatre.
The strategic review addressed a number of important questions about New Connections. These included the programme's aims for the young people, teachers and youth theatre leaders who take part; its relationship to the wider aims of the National Theatre and to the re-launched Discover Programme; the commissioning of the plays; and the partnerships with regional theatres. We have also looked at the changing context for young people's theatre-making, both within and beyond the formal education sector. Underlying these issues was the more fundamental question of whether, after 15 years, New Connections should continue in its current form, make way for a new programme, or whether there remained scope for the project to be renewed and developed.
The outcome of the review is an emphatic commitment to the continuation of New Connections. There will be a year's break from the programme in 2009-2010, to allow the recommendations of this review to be further developed and implemented with the National Theatre's partners, and to enable Discover to learn from the full evaluation of the 2009 cycle. The National Theatre has, however, committed to the re-launch of the programme for the 2010-11 cycle, and, subject to funding, for the following two years up to the National Theatre's 50th anniversary in 2013.
Key recommendations
To read the key recommendations for the programme, please click here.
