Chiswick Theatre Arts to take part in National Theatre Connections festival

Image: National Theatre Connections

Drama studio students to perform a new play at The Lyric, Hammersmith

Chiswick Theatre Arts (recently rebranded as CTA Performing Arts) have been chosen to take part in the National Theatre’s Connections festival next year.

‘Connections’ is an annual, nationwide youth theatre festival, ‘celebrating the creativity and talent of young people across the UK’. Now in its 31st year, the National Theatre proudly claims the programme has a history of ’empowering the next generation of theatre-makers’.

So does CTA Performing Arts. The studio offers training in dance and drama to children aged 2 – 18 across a range of regular dance and drama classes and holiday workshops, and has produced some stunning successes.

Finley Hobbins, now 17, trained at Chiswick Theatre Arts, as it was then, and won the part of the lead child role in Disney’s Dumbo, directed by Tim Burton, when he was nine. Georgina Burns, owner of CTA Performing Arts, has trained three Matildas for the lead role in the West End show, and boasts 100% Distinctions in LAMDA exam results.

Emme Walsh, 13, who will be performing a solo at the switch-on of the Christmas lights in Chiswick on Thursday (27 November) has just finished performing at Manchester Opera House in the brand-new musical 13 going on 30.

READ ALSO: Christmas lights switch-on in Chiswick Thursday 27 November

One of National Theatre Connections plays from last year: ‘No Regrets’, Glasgow Acting Academy; Photograph Foteini Christofilopoulou / National Theatre

‘Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth’

Each year, Connections commissions a selection of brand-new plays for young people to perform.

A group of older students (13 – 19) have already started rehearsing their play: Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth by Kirsty Housley, which they will perform first in Chiswick early next year, and receive feedback from a National Theatre mentor, before performing it at the Lyric Theatre in April.

All over the country there are 6,000 young people in 250 youth groups following a similar process, preparing to perform their play at their home base before performing it at a professional theatre.

Finally, a select number of groups (one for each play) will be invited to perform at the Connections Summer Festival (June 2026): ‘a final celebration, which spotlights each play and champions the incredible work created throughout the year’.

Connections is open to any company of young people aged 13-19, and up to 26 for groups with additional needs. Whether you’re a school, youth theatre, or voluntary organisation – whether you’re experienced in staging plays or trying it for the first time – your group can apply to be part of Connections.

nationaltheatre.org.uk

One of National Theatre Connections plays from last year: ‘Their Name is Joy’; NGA Theatre Company; Photograph Foteini Christofilopoulou / National Theatre

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