Academy performs as part of national festival

Each year, National Theatre Connections offers a unique opportunity for youth theatres and schools nationwide to stage new plays that have been written particularly for young people to perform at its Youth Theatre Festival in leading theatres across the UK.

The Lancing academy has selected the play Status Update by Tim Etchells, a British artist and writer, and put together a cast of 26 students from years ten, 12 and 13.

They performed the play for the first time on Thursday and Friday, in the Alan Strong Theatre at the academy, prior to performing at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester on March 24. Among the audience was a director from National Theatre Connections.

Status Update is based on the life of teenagers and is described by National Theatre Connections as ‘an unflinching and funny catalogue of the things teenagers learn, believe and have sussed out about the world. From the ridiculous to the highly charged, all these truths and half-truths are laid bare before us, without the safety net of character or fiction’.

The ten regional theatre groups involved in the festival perform their plays on home territory, they play at their partner theatres. In the summer, there may also be an opportunity to perform the play at the National Theatre in London.

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