Young Stage 2016–2018 participants selected – HKT to cooperate with seven youth groups

27 youth theatre groups have been selected to participate in the national Young Stage project to produce new plays in cooperation with professional theatres. Seven groups of young people will start their cooperation with the Helsinki City Theatre.

The groups include amateur theatres, secondary school and upper secondary school groups, as well as a joint group for immigrants and native Finnish youth. The sponsor groups of the Helsinki City Theatre are: Annantalo Theatre Group Vire, Martinlaakso Upper Secondary School, Tapiola Upper Secondary School, Kallio Upper Secondary School, Järvenpää Theatre Youth, Theatre Group Werner from Porvoo and Havukoski School Drama Group. 

The new plays written for the project, which deal with the multifaceted world of young people and are aimed at 13–19-year-olds, have been commissioned from Finland’s leading playwrights: Gunilla Hemming, Pipsa Longa and Veikko Nuutinen. The fourth play was written by Rasmus Lindberg for a similar project in Sweden in 2014.

The cooperation will culminate locally in six theatre festivals in April-May 2018, when 27 different interpretations of four plays will be premiered throughout Finland. The young people aged 13–19 have chosen to perform one of three plays written for the project and one translated into Finnish.

In August 2018, in the first days of the Tampere Theatre Festival, the grand Young Stage closing festival will be held on the two stages of the Tampere Workers’ Theatre. This is a festive review of new youth play texts, to which interpretations of four plays will be invited. 

The seven professional theatres involved in the Young Stage project represent the whole of Finland both geographically and functionally. For the first time in their history, the Helsinki City Theatre and the Finnish National Theatre, the two major operators in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, will join forces in organising a joint local festival in the spring of 2018. Of the provincial theatres, the Mikkeli and Varkaus Theatres will organise a joint local festival. Of the northern theatres, the Kemi City Theatre participates , and the easternmost is the Kotka City Theatre. The young people of the Tampere Region cooperate with the Tampere Workers’ Theatre , which is the venue for the grand closing festival.

The Young Stage project is implemented nationally by the Association of Workers’ Stages. The project is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the People’s Education Fund.

Project website www.nuorinayttamo.info 

Further information: Helsinki City Theatre, Mirja Neuvonen, Head of Audience Outreach, tel. 040 352 3969, mirja.neuvonen@hkt.fi