A publication for the creative community of theatre professionals, presenting reflection and best-practice examples to make theatre with and for young people.
What occupies the mind of the young generation today? This was a core question for the development of a new European drama repertory for young people in the frame of Young Europe III. The project, initiated by the ETC, gathered 9 European theatres from 5 countries, which created 9 new youth theatre productions. This publication presents reflections and offers insights into the creation of a new European drama repertory for young audiences through the development of new texts, innovative formats and audience involvement.
Youth Theatre – A Casebook was written to conclude the Young Europe Festival, initially planned for June 2020 in Graz, Austria, which unfortunately got postponed to next year due to the pandemic.
5 countries, 9 theatres, 3 artistic research teams, 7 new plays, 9 productions
The European Theatre Convention’s artistic collaboration project Young Europe III focused on theatre as a place of identification for young people in Europe. Over two years, nine ETC Member Theatres collaborated in groups of three to develop new theatre texts and productions on the topics of rage, democracy, identity and the future.
From in-depth performative research with teenagers from Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia, the artistic teams identified major themes for new plays to expand European multilingual drama for young audiences.
Nine different productions have been created throughout the theatre season 2019-2020 across Europe. These add to the ever-growing European repertoire of contemporary plays for young people, in the frame of the Young Europe initiative since 2008.
Read the articles from the casebook
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Foreword to "Youth Theatre - A Casebook"
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Age of Rage
"When you have the feeling that no one cares about you and you have difficulty making ends meet, you vote for the person who promises you an extra twenty euros every month." Wieke Ten Cate tells us about writing for teenagers about radicalism. -
Before Tomorrow
"As the generation known by the final letters of the alphabet continues to grow up and become adults in the early twenty-first century, a contradictory situation becomes ever more evident... -
Surface Chat or Silent Depth
"We can say on an abstract level that one of the main sources of rage among the teenage respondents is ‘Family’ itself." -
How to Develop Games in (a) Theatre?
"A very important thing to reflect on is that you exclude linearity in storytelling. This way, parts of the story are left out at some shows but included in others." -
Creating a Language for and With Young Audiences
"A fresh take on language connected with computer slang, modern abbreviations and rough descriptions of things, lives and people." -
Democrisis
Why democracies are not about doing the right thing, but about how the right thing is always being done in the right way. -
Theatre Not Only For, but With the Youth
A conversation with the Youth Council of the Deutsches Theater Berlin -
Young European Voices Exploring Hopes and Dreams
Raising young people’s voices across Europe, exploring their hopes and dreams, their fears and insecurities, and developing a new European theatre repertory inspired by this, was at the core of the Young Europe III project.
