Positive Stories for Negative Times: Season Four!
Posted by CHARTS
Positive Stories is a free, international participatory project offering organisations who work with young people access to newly commissioned plays, a theatre-making process and training by the best theatre artists working in the UK. Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theatre have presented three seasons of the project so far, reaching over 10,00 young people from 16 different countries including UK, South Africa, India, USA, Canada, Italy and Sweden.
The free project offers groups the opportunity to use brand new scripts written specifically for young people completely for free. There are two ways to get involved:
1. You can stage a production of your chosen play in your local community (but equally there is no obligation to create a ‘finished product’, instead the focus is on participation, confidence building and creativity!)
2. You can apply to bring a group of young people to one of our four festivals in 2025 at either An Lanntair, Theatre Royal Dumfries, Traverse Theatre or The Tron Theatre (Deadline 14th November). Participation is free, and each two-day festival will feature youth performances, workshops with special guests, and plenty of time to connect with other groups. You’ll also get tech support, rehearsals and a variety of creative workshops along with individual visits from an industry professional in the lead-up. Plus, dinner is provided for all participants and bursaries are available for groups who need them.
Season Four includes exciting new scripts by Ella Hickson, James Ley, Travis Alabanza, Mammalian Diving Reflex and young writer Hannah Low. The project is suitable for a range of ages (6-25), interests and support needs, and the scripts have been created with input, feedback and ideas from the Wonder Fools Youth Board.
You don't need to have any experience of theatre and support is embedded throughout the process. Alongside the project, Wonder Fools are proud to offer a range of participation activities including online workshops with the playwrights, zoom Play/Meets where group leaders can meet and support each other and lots more.
To read more about season 4 of Positive Stories and potentially sign up to take part, you can follow this link: https://positivestories.scot/. Sign-ups are open until September 2025 and applications to perform at one of our festivals are open until 14th November 2024.