Zest is back with brand new work made especially for YouTube
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Zest Theatre receives lifeline grant from Government’s £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund
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Zest Theatre has been awarded £50,000 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.
Read MoreAs the confetti falls: Youthquake reflections from our young people and professional team
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As 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 MoreGen-Z and the aftermath of the General Election: what Young People can teach us
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During 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 MoreAnnouncing the Youthquake National Tour 2019/20
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Part 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 MoreYouthquake Q&A with Toby Ealden
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Zest’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 More5 Tips to Releasing Young Voices
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Zest 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 MoreWe Deserve Better - Letting Young People speak for themselves
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Our 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 MoreHow To Start A Youthquake?
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Catch up on our first week of Youthquake Research and Development, as the Zest Creative Team headed to Norwich and Lincoln to delve into the lives and minds of teen Britain. We were excited. We were nervous. There’s nothing quite like starting to write a new show. The possibilities of what you could create are almost endless. At the end of R&D phase, the blank white page you started with is full of stories, all crafted together to make a proper script.
But where do we start?
Read MoreZest are Off West End Award Winners!
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Having 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 MoreKeys For Change: Unlocking Unheard Voices
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What do we do when all our artistic experience and knowledge is challenged? On a recent participation project, Zest had to rethink everything they knew about making theatre, shaking the foundations of their process to its' core. What we discovered about ourselves and our participants has changed our practice for the better.
Read MorePost Traumatic Growth - the psychology behind Thrive
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For 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 MoreInterview: Dan Morgan - Life On the Road
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You 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 MoreStripping Away the Actor’s Ego – performing immersive theatre for young audiences
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As 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 MoreLet's Talk About Dying
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Every 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 MoreUnderstanding Difference - a look back on the R&D for Zest's 2017 production
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Living in Britain, it could be hard to imagine growing up in a country like Australia. Over time you realise people make judgements about you based on where you’re from before getting to know you. For some, the questions (and the judgements) are far worse than “do you have a pet kangaroo?”
Read MoreTop 5 Zest Blogs of 2016
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Back 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.
Read MoreOur 2016 Best Bits!
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2016 has been a pretty incredble year! There are so many amazing moments that we'll take away from the last 12 months... but here are some of our best bits!
Read MoreLearning to Listen - my experience of making Zest's new show
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How do you react to someone who thinks completely unlike you? It turns out that joining an R&D process for a show about difference, otherness and broken communities was the perfect opportunity for me to learn how to listen.
Read MoreIn Safe Hands - some thoughts on the next generation and the future of Britain
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Last week saw us begin the process of making a brand new show. A show about difference and how the fear of those ‘other’ to us can spill into hate. And what a week we chose to begin that process.
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