The Helsinki Festival of the Young Stage project will be held this coming weekend

Youth groups have worked hard throughout the exceptional coronavirus year. This coming weekend, groups mentored by the Helsinki City Theatre and the Finnish National Theatre will present a diverse range of different theatre works, from a five-minute video to a full-length performance recording. This time, the festival will be carried out without a live audience only for professional viewers.

All the youth groups that participated in the national Young Stage project have produced works inspired by new Finnish commissioned plays. The plays are Okko Leo’s Daddy, Katariina Numminen’s The Girl Forest and Otto Sandqvist’s Flamingo Red Dream. The authors have been supported by dramaturg Annina Enckell. In addition, dramaturg Anna Krogerus chose Harriet Braun’s play Three from the British Connection project, which has been translated into Finnish by Jukka-Pekka Pajunen.

During the coming weekend, 15 groups of young people from the Uusimaa region will perform their free interpretations of new plays. There will be all-night live performances, scene recordings, music videos, personal introductions and video podcasts. In connection with the compilation review, the groups will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue with theatre professionals. This time, the national Young Stage decision forum will also be held on 26 May. Zoom, where all 800 young people who participated in the project can share their experiences together.

“Most of the groups have been practicing mainly remotely since the end of November. They have used different surfaces and working methods and trained outdoors both in the freezing temperatures of January and in the spring rain. The last groups were able to attend contact teaching in May, with masks on their faces and safe distances. In the end, the only live performances of the Young Stage this season will be the three performances at Studio Pasila on Friday, and of course, for safety reasons, without an audience only for professional spectators,” says Mirja Neuvonen, Head of Audience Outreach at the Helsinki City Theatre.

The work of the groups has been supported by their own designated mentor. Of the seven sponsors of the National Theatre, make-up artist and hairdresser Tuire Kerälä has been involved in the rehearsals of the Roinela Music Theatre. “Working with young people has been very rewarding and has provided a good counterbalance to my everyday work. I have tried to support the young people and offer them my own experience and professionalism.  I believe that we professionals, as well as the young people who participated in the work, received a lot of great and important stimuli from each other,” Kerälä says.

The project has been led by theatre curator Pirjo Virtanen at the Finnish National Theatre. “In this exceptional year, the directors of young groups have shown a true love for theatre by inspiring young amateurs to cope and continue with plays in remote rehearsals, outdoors, alone or with a partner. The groups’ shared desire to create their own interpretation of the texts despite the difficulties, even if it is as a music video, is wonderful and admirable,” Virtanen comments.   

At the Young Stage review on Sunday, 15 August, the Vallila National Theatre will feature six performances or video recordings of the plays from selected sponsor groups of the Helsinki, Kokkola and Lahti City Theatres, as well as the Kouvola Theatre and the National Theatre.

The Young Stage project, which is now being organised for the third time, is implemented nationally by the Association of Workers’ Stages. The project is supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Riihi Foundation.

More information on the website of the Association of Finnish Workers’ Stages: www.tnl.fi/nuorinayttamo

Further information
Pirjo Virtanen, Theatre Curator at the Finnish National Theatre, 050 374 2296, pirjo.virtanen@kansallisteatteri.fi
Mirja Neuvonen, Head of Audience Outreach at the Helsinki City Theatre, 040 352 3969, mirja.neuvonen@hkt.fi
Photos from the image bank.