All over bar the shouting...

I can't claim for a single second that this was my idea, but here is a wordle of BYT's main aims and its imagined future. (Thank you Marcus Romer, thank you Chris Hammond.)  Now that the world is shaped differently, and the future is shifting and always tantalisingly out of reach,  and whilst there are still things to attend to make it all happen, it seemed pertinent to share our wordle here too. What's interesting about this wordle are the five main words that jump out - youth work young people theatre.  I have been trying for some time to pin down our USP and perhaps that covers it?  That is what we do - youth work young people theatre. 

Of course, that isn't all we do - as the wordle demonstrates... we're ambitious about technology, about engaging young people wherever they are and about extending our practice to include young people excluded from participation. We feel incredibly fortunate to have our amazing space - and are looking to develop it beyond ourselves as a hub of excellence for youth theatres in general.  As a designated youth space, one thing we can do is encourage young people to get involved, have their say, and make their own work - and we can prioritise that here.  We can say that the work of young people is central to what we do because it is.  I extend an invite to any young person who wants to make theatre to come to us and talk to us about it... this is the place for you to do precisely that. Any young emerging young artist needs to look us up and get in touch.  The space at BYT needs you... 

But that isn't all we do.  We are also about the bigger picture: opening up possibilities for young people to really grab hold of, to shake things up, try them on for size, shape the world, change it - think long and hard about what is possible.   We say - at the youth theatre - you can imagine yourself differently - you can imagine the world differently.  

My mother used to have a habit of using a phrase all wrong - of making her own world and superimposing it on the real one.  Many of her sayings are far too rude and sweary to record here but she often used to say things that were uniquely her own. If for example, you said that food was hot she would say, "You sit with your backside in the oven, and you'd be hot too."  Another favourite, in response to my saying, "I really wish I had...." was "Poo in one hand and wish in the other and see which gets fullest first."  (Obviously she didn't say backside and she didn't say poo!)  These sayings and half sayings have served me very well over the years. She is a pragmatic down to earth person, believing that your feet should be on the ground, and that there is a world of difference between need and want.  

Young people need a space to become themselves.  Young people need to find a way of responding to and exploring the world.  Young people need somewhere safe, somewhere to express themselves, to be creative - young people need a gateway into the cultural possibilities that the arts and theatre in particular can offer.  They have that here at BYT in pragmatic, down to earth ways.  

I have spent all day with another of my mother's idioms floating around my head.  This week has been particularly exhausting and the whole team have been striving to ensure that the youth theatre has the future we hope for - we strive every week for this, of course, but this week has been especially pressing.   As we sent off a particularly important application, I kept thinking, "Well, it's all over bar the shouting..."

The way my mother used to use this, I always felt that the worst had passed - that we'd given it our best shot and that we'd done all we could - not that we'd win necessarily but that it was finished with.  And that's how I feel now.   Who knows whether we'll get exactly what we want?  Who knows if the future we imagined is the future that will come - but there will be a future, of one kind or another - that is certain and in that sense, it really is all over bar the shouting - as sure as eggs is eggs the future will come. 

Because it matters - Trade and Serendipty

Happy New Year.  Okay.  It's not the new year, and it may not be all that happy for some folk.  But I am a born optimist.  (This annoys me.)    I've worked as hard as I have ever worked over the holiday period, and I'm still surrounded by disparate thoughts and random jottings that seem to be relevant and things that somehow need to be included in that which shall not be named.  You all know what I'm talking about. I can't go anywhere, see anyone, read anything without thinking "Ah, that!"  For instance, Anthony Howard, who died recently apparently said that the chief job of the newspaper editor was to nurture new talent.  (Today programme, Radio Four, 5/012011).  Much like the chief job of the Artistic Director of the Burnley Youth Theatre, I thought.  My chief role anyway is to nurture young talent. It's sometimes easy to forget that when you're knee deep in paperwork that your cat is using as an improvised luge. Anthony Howard also refused to believe that journalism was a profession.  It was, according to him, a trade.  I like that.  A trade.  I suddenly felt, hearing that, like I'm not some terrible interloper in the world - I can, legitimately, be my father's daughter.  A tradeswoman.  And I know what Anthony Howard is inferring, too.  Seeing the arts and cultural sector as a trade does, at the very least, make us re-engage with with two things...

1) Trade acknowledges a specialism - a knowing of something and a learning process that got us to that level of knowing

and

2) That we don't know everything.  That there are other tradespeople out there, who make up a rich ecology of arts, culture and the real world, people who know other things better than we do.

And to take the analogy to its conclusion - we will have to actually begin trading with others to enable what we do to work. A plumber might have the most amazing bathroom suite in the world plumbed in exquisitely, but if he doesn't bother with a lovely woodworked or some sort surround, it won't look great - in fact, it might look a bit unsightly.

So, here I am doing that which cannot be named (well obviously not right at this minute) when I get this bright idea.  I might not use it, I think, but you know I'm a bit of a magpie, so even if I don't use it it will still come in useful at some other point.  I send out a general call to a number of folk, ex participants to summarise what the youth theatre has meant to them. Well - this is where the serendipity bit comes in.  Because what I was expecting was, of course, to say how marvellous the youth theatre was and  how brilliant a time was had - and what I got was a moving and profound affirmation of the work of the youth theatre over the last 40 years and a reason, as if I'd needed one, to carry on.  Because it matters.

Take Kris, for example:

"Burnley Youth Theatre literally shaped my life. Every single person has artistic flair within them and for me BYT manifested and nurtured my inner artistic,creative self. Not only did BYT teach me all about Acting but also the value of respect and compassion for other people"

Take Rhiannon:

"My time at Burnley Youth Theatre made a massive impact upon my life. It gave me an appreciation of Burnley, as well as the impetus to think of life beyond my town, and the skills to pursue that life. Most of my closest friends were made there, and some of the best experiences of my life were either at, or in connection with, BYT. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that came because of my connection with the organisation-many of which were utterly outside the realm of the Arts- as well as for the people I met, worked alongside and explored life's possibilities with. Without a doubt, I would be a very different person were it not for my time at BYT."

Take Daniel:

"Without the Youth Theatre I would not have had the confidence to get me where I am today. The Youth theatre gives confidence and brings out passion, not only for the arts but for essential life skills needed to conquer life changing events. Now as a highly successful financial adviser I have a lot to thank Burnley Youth Theatre for."

Take Anna:

"I cannot thank BYT enough for the opportunities it provided for me: the exciting workshops and plays; the creative and social outlet in an encouraging environment; the chance to meet people from other backgrounds; the experience of going on tour; and my first directing opportunity. BYT allowed me to meet some of my closest friends, but it also gave me access to theatrical resources and workshops that were not available in school. I think it is largely thanks to the opportunities given by BYT that I was granted a place to study theatre directing at Birkbeck College this year." 

And on.  And on.  There were dozens like this.  People in their 20s and 30s and 40s who testified and time and again how profound the youth theatre experience was for them; how in big and small ways it has shaped their lives.  Taken them places they never expected to go.  Given them enduring friendships.  Offered them skills to work inside the cultural sector, and outside of it.  So it's not an idle or whimsical thought about the impact we have. It's a fact.  I knew it, of course.  But it was serendipitous to be reminded quite so profoundly at this point in time.