Launched in 2015 Chrysalis is a new theatre festival and the only platform of its kind in Scotland for ambitious and provocative performance by young theatre-makers. An innovation from Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, it aims to attract new audiences to youth theatre arts, inspire Scotland’s youth arts sector and enhance public perception of creative work by young people.
Building on last year’s success, the second Chrysalis Festival returns this November to Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre when elements have been added with even more works by emerging young talent, bringing together seven selected youth theatre groups from across Europe to perform dramatic pieces written by them.
Groups taking part this year include Deptford’s Sounds Like Chaos and The Albany; Glasgow’s Tron Young Company and Platform Young Company and from Malta Teatru Manoel Youth Theatre. Themes explored this year range from love and war to coping with loss and surviving the end of the world. (details below)
Kenny McGlashan, CEO of Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, said, “Chrysalis is an important new festival on the capitals cultural calendar. With the 12 main Edinburgh Festivals confirming that they attracted as many visitors as the World Cup, the nation can be proud of its creative reputation around the world. But there are other important grass-roots festivals helping to push the vanguard of new work and activity year round in the city. The Chrysalis festival of emerging talent at the Traverse Theatre joins a number of other innovative mini-festivals that help to grow Scotland's reputation for innovative arts.”
Running alongside the main performance programme, Chrysalis Too offers a curated series of workshops and talks focusing on current trends and challenges in contemporary youth theatre practice.
Chrysalis Festival takes place over three from Friday 18th to Sunday 20th November 2016.Tickets and festival ticket packages are available via the Traverse Theatre Box Office.
The shows to be performed are as follows:
Platform Young Company, Glasgow
The Island
A group of misfits, stragglers and dreamers roam across an apocalyptic wasteland trying to find out what happens after the end of everything.
Tron Young Company, Glasgow
Sheep
A spotlight on modern war looks at media propaganda, gender roles in conflict and what happens when war arrives on your doorstep.
Sounds Like Chaos and The Albany, Deptford
Phenomena: A Beginner’s Guide To Love & Physics
We want to know it all, the whole universe and everything in it. Contrasting physics facts with the uniqueness of experience, young people question how we learn to love.
Teatru Manoel Youth Theatre, Malta
Club
How does a group of young people deal with the death of a friend? Some get angry, some bargain, some sink into depression – but all of them CLUB.
Emergence: This new festival strand for 2016 will feature the following three 20-minute experimental and new works-in-progress:
Strange Town, Edinburgh
Crossing:
Macrobert Young Company, Stirling
Agents Of Change
Nicholas Barton-Wines with Beacon Youth Theatre, Greenock
How To Save The World…Ish