Take a look behind the scenes at Zest Theatre to find out more about what we do and how we do it.
This year, Zest hit all the right notes: epic partnerships, bold new artworks, youth-led brilliance, strategy in action, and unforgettable moments on the road. We launched innovative pop-up youth arts spaces with The Zone, and made our mark in new locations and beyond to reach a massive 401,000 people! Ready to relive the highlights? Let’s dive into Zest Wrapped 2024.
Read MoreWhat a year 2023 has been! As we lock up Zest HQ and head off on our well-deserved festive holiday, join us as we reflect on the last 12 months: an epic year of graft, changes, and growth. A year that saw Zest go BIG, reaching over 424,000 people with our work! Let’s look at our 2023 best bits…
Read MoreFor the first time since the pandemic began, Zest is back with a brand new show!
Written by Bush Theatre’s Young Company Director, Katie Greenall, with new songs by Loop Artist Koko Brown, Camp Phoenix is a show packed with adventure, new music, and vital life lessons, featuring a dynamic cast of professional performers and local young people who helped develop the show.
This new show has been commissioned by Lincoln Arts Centre, Barnsley Civic, and ARC Stockton and will be our first touring production since becoming an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.
Read MoreFor the first time since the pandemic, Zest is making a brand-new production!!! Throughout January and February 2023, Zest will travel the country to Research and Develop (R&D) the yet-to-be-titled new show. Across the process, we’ll meet over 700 children and young people from Lincoln, Stockton, Canterbury, Barnsley, and Lewisham.
Read More2022 was another year of big lows but, thankfully, even bigger highs. We’re still here, we’re still open, and still thriving for the communities we serve. And thanks to the news that we’re becoming an NPO, the future has never looked brighter!
Read More2021 has been another interesting one, right? For Zest, it’s been a year of big highs, big lows, and many unexpected pivots. We’re still here, we’re still open, and still thriving for the communities we serve. But it seems that unexpected pivots create unexpected results.
Read MoreWell, 2020 has been quite a ride! It’s definitely not been the year we’d planned. At times we’ve cried about the projects we’ve lost, whilst at other points we’ve relished the opportunity to experiment and try new things. 2020 may have been the worst, but there is still so much for us to celebrate. So here goes…
Read MoreAs the confetti falls on our 2019/20 national tour of Youthquake, we reflect on the entire process and hear from a selection of the Young People, Cast and Creative team that have made it all happen.
Read MoreDuring the afternoon of the vote for the 2019 General Election, #youthquake was trending in the echo chamber of Twitter, with hundreds of thousands of tweets sharing expectant excitement of the outcome the next generation could bring. Like 2017, we know the rest of the story. The majority of voters aged 18-24 did actually vote for Labour, but were outnumbered by the older generations. So what is the story for those young people?
Read MorePart show, part TED Talk and part party, Youthquake by OFFIE-award-winning Zest Theatre gives a powerful insight into the hidden lives and minds of Teen Britain and questions what it actually means to change the world.
Read MoreZest’s Artistic Director, Toby Ealden, has been making theatre for young audiences for over sixteen years, including youth theatres, school tours and national touring. His past work includes working as the youth theatre director for Nacro, the national crime reduction charity, before establishing Zest Theatre in 2007. We chatted to Toby to find out more about Youthquake and how it came to be.
Read MoreZest Theatre are currently Researching and Developing a brand new show based on the honest voices, thoughts and opinions of young people across the UK. So how do we do this? How do we genuinely unlock young voices to allow them to talk so openly? Read our 5 Tips to find out.
Read MoreOur second week of Youthquake research and development brought us to Hartlepool. The young people in Hartlepool had a strong sense that the system is stacked against them and apathetic to their needs. Within these stories, however, there was a determination that the narrative of deprivation in Hartlepool would not be an endless cycle. Not all young people want to leave their home city for something better – they wanted to solve the problems and change their home for the better.
Read MoreHaving wowed audiences across the country at the end of last year, we're delighted that What Once Was Ours has won the Best Production for Young People 13+ at the Off West End Awards!
Read MoreFor the last twenty years or so, psychologists have studied the incredible strength of character that can emerge in a minority of people when they face painful events. Twenty years of research tells us that these events needn’t destroy us – in some cases, they can make us stronger. Some people become wiser, others kinder, others more connected. Pain develops people in all kinds of ways. This field of research is called Post Traumatic Growth, and forms the basis of the psychology surrounding the characters in Thrive.
Read MoreYou can wake up in one city, deliver a workshop in another and do an evening performance in another before heading back to another hotel. Most of the work I have done has been for young people and it isn’t unusual to engage with over 500 people in a day. A lot of the time, we take theatre to people that may never have experienced it before and it’s great to hear their stories when you chat to them afterwards and see how they connected with the work. For me, that’s a pretty powerful feeling.
Read MoreAs an actor, I’ve been very comfortable with immersive theatre for a while. In 2014 I took an immersive one-on-one piece (one performer, one audience member) to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And I performed it a lot. I’m talking 5 hours a day, 6 days a week for a whole month. Audiences laughed with me, cried with me, shared food with me. One person even asked me out on date. (I didn’t realise it was actually a date until I was on it – yep, that was awkward.) I was pretty sure I’d totally sussed out the immersive theatre vibe and nothing could throw me. But of course, immersive theatre with younger audiences is a whole different game.
Read MoreEvery year over 500,000 children and young people in the UK experience bereavement. Few are prepared, few have friends who know how to support and too many go on to experience significant challenges throughout life. This is why St Barnabas Hospice in Lincolnshire were so keen to be involved in the development of Thrive.
Read MoreBack in September we launched our new website, complete with this blog! As celebrate the end of an awesome year, here's our 5 most read blogs of 2016.
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