Members of the Taunton Brewhouse Youth Theatre are proud to be taking part in this year’s National Theatre Connections, an annual, nationwide youth theatre festival championing the talent of young people from across the UK.
Every year, Connections commissions new plays for young people to perform. The programme brings together some of the UK’s most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. In 2024, the National Theatre is working with nearly 270 youth companies to share compelling tales that explore the breadth of the human experience.
This year, Taunton Brewhouse are proud to be participating with their 14-strong Youth Theatre led by Director Abbie Riddell. The group will be performing Siân Owen’s radical new play The Periodicals.
Set in the near future, a group of young people live as a feral group of techno-savvy fugitives living off-the land. They stay out of sight of the authorities – particularly the education authorities who are desperate to get them back into school because the optics are not good. However, school has lost its allure. When the young people are in school, they are overlooked and underestimated – seen as being more trouble than they are worth. So now, for this group, school’s out forever.
Playwright Siân Owen was born and raised in Newport, South Wales and is a graduate of the MA Writing for Performance Programme at Goldsmiths College. Her play Restoration won the Oxford Playhouse New Writing Competition, and she is currently on attachment at the National Theatre.
Her previous theatre credits include additional material for Under Milk Wood (National Theatre), How to Be Brave (Dirty Protest), and This Land (Pentabus).
The Periodicals opens at Taunton Brewhouse on Monday 25 March, before moving to Worcester Theatres for a special NT Connections Festival performance on Tuesday 2 April.
Commenting on the experience, Director Abbie Riddell said: “NT Connections is such a special opportunity for young people to participate in, so for our Youth Theatre to be selected is hugely exciting. Our current Youth Theatre has only recently turned one-year-old, so being able to work on The Periodicals as a Main House production is a joy.”
“Today’s young people involved in the arts are the future generation of theatre professionals; I’m so thrilled to be working with each and every one of our wonderful company.”
NT Connections: The Periodicals is now on sale. Book tickets at tauntonbrewhouse.co.uk or contact the Box Office on 01823 283244 (open weekdays from 10am – 4pm).