Young Everyman Playhouse’s (YEP) Young Directors’ Festival sees the company continue their ground-breaking work that gives young people opportunities on stage and off stage. Winners of The Stage Youth Theatre of the Year Award in 2015 for their pioneering structure that gives young people training and skills in all theatre disciplines, YEP’s Directors’ Festival is a unique festival in regional theatre, showcasing the skills of the directors of the future. This year’s festival runs from Monday 6th to 21st June in the Everyman’s Ev1 space.
Entering its third year, the YEP Directors’ Festival has a number of successes with alumni now breaking into the industry. Joe Mellor, who took part in the first festival in 2014, was assistant director on Bright Phoenix at the Everyman before becoming full time assistant director at Bolton Octagon. Sarah Jayne Van Parys, a graduate of the second year of the YEP Directors, went on to become assistant director on Everyman & Playhouse’s The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead which toured the U.K. with co-producers English Touring Theatre. Both these young people were supported by YEP in their successful application to the three month Regional Young Theatre Directors Scheme.
The YEP Directors’ Festival sees all the YEP strands come together, working collaboratively to create theatre together. The plays are produced by Young Producers, marketing is done by Young Communicators, while Young Technicians and Bass Technicians tech the shows. YEP’s Young Actors will perform the plays and designs for the productions are provided by students at LIPA. All of this gives hands on experience to all of YEP, along with enhancing their knowledge of the collective working required to create a production from scratch. In preparation for the festival each director receives mentorship by industry professionals.
The festival kicks off on Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th June with an exciting new production of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect directed by Julia Carstairs. Two twenty-something volunteers agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Unbeknownst to them the drug being trialled is an anti-depressant; as the trial proceeds the patients find themselves succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love.
Bob Farquhar’s God’s Official (which was recently adapted for the big screen in Kicking Off) is directed by Alex Medlicott on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th June. Devastated by a dodgy refereeing decision, which condemned their beloved football team to relegation in the very last game of the season, Cliff and Degsy seek retribution by kidnapping the referee responsible for their woe.
Pints are being pulled, the punters are in and secrets may well be spilled in Jim Cartwright’s Two directed by Sarah Eastaff on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June. Performed by two actors, Cartwright’s play shows us the variety of people who come into the pub on any one evening.
Plastic Figurines was a hit for Ella Carmen Greenhill and Box of Tricks in the Playhouse Studio last year and it returns again at the YEP Directors’ Festival, directed by Philip Davies. Inspired by events in the playwright’s own life, Plastic Figurines is a funny and moving new play that explores autism and the relationship between two siblings with very different views of the world.
In Anya Reiss’s The Acid Test, Dana, Ruth and Jess down shots to console the heart-broken, to comfort the anxious and just pass the time. Kicked out from the family home Jess’s Dad, Jim, invades the party with just as much recklessness as the girls. Jade Thomson directs this unruly comedy asking if age equals maturity on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th June.
Jack Cooper directs Ella Hickson’s Hot Mess on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st June. The play follows the story of paternal twins, Polo & Twitch , born with only one heart to share – which at birth, is given to the affectionate Twitch, leaving Polo cynical and literally cold hearted.
THE EFFECT
By Lucy Prebble
Directed by Julia Carstairs
Monday 6th to Tuesday 7th June
7.45pm (3pm Tuesday matinee)
GOD’S OFFICIAL
By Robert Farquhar
Directed by Alex Medlicott
Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9 June
7.45pm (3pm Thursday matinee)
TWO
By Jim Cartwright
Directed by Sarah Eastaff
Friday 10th and Saturday 11th June
7.45pm (3pm Saturday matinee)
PLASTIC FIGURINES
By Ella Carmen Greenhill
Directed by Philip Davies
Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th June
7.45pm (3pm Tuesday matinee)
THE ACID TEST
By Anya Reiss
Directed by Jade Thomson
Wednesday 15th to Thursday 16th June
7.45pm (3pm Thursday matinee)
HOT MESS
By Ella Hickson
Directed by Jack Cooper
Monday 20th to Tuesday 21st June
7.45pm (3pm Tuesday matinee)